Rebel Vignette
by lbindner
Summary: Fills in the plot vacancies (not the plot holes) set before, during, and after ROTJ
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own them, obviously, or I would be rich.

In memory of Carrie Fisher.

Rebel Vignette

By Linda Bindner

A/N: Each chapter in this collection stands alone, but is part of the whole. This story is marked 'complete,' but it will never really be complete as long as I keep thinking of things to write about. And I keep thinking of _that one more thing!_ I can't help myself.

A/N 2: This story collection doesn't take the EU into account.

A/N3: Thanks go to yeahsureyoubetcha for such a great beta.

Chapter 1: Managing the Message

 _Greetings, Exalted One. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and friend to Captain Solo._

Luke skeptically stared at the words that appeared on his palmcom while asking Leia, "Do you really think I should call him 'Exalted One?' Maybe that's too much."  
Leia shrugged. "You're the one who said that Jabba thinks very highly of himself, and always has. Someone like that would automatically respond well to being called 'Exalted One.'"

"But do you think that it's like I'm just pandering to him? He'll know it in a minute if I do that. I don't want to make him angry."

Leia visibly restrained her frustration at Luke's political naivete to say, "From what you tell me, Jabba's the kind of gangster who always answers well to pandering, even if he knows that's what you're doing. I think we should play to that part of him, soothe him, make him feel good about himself." Luke still didn't look convinced, and Leia gently added, "Trust me, Luke. I know what I'm doing."

"If you say so." He turned back to the palmcom in his hand to read over the next few words of text.

 _I know that you are mighty..._

"Change that 'mighty' to 'strong,'" Leia suggested.

"Computer, change-"

"No, wait," Leia said. "Make it 'powerful' instead. He already knows he's strong. But someone who's so narcissistic will respond better to being described as 'powerful.' It'll make him feel good about himself, and we definitely want him feeling good."

Luke shrugged just as Leia had. "You're the boss. Computer, change 'mighty' to 'powerful.' Display entire message."

The computer instantly complied, and the message appeared on the device in Luke's hand. With a sinking heart, he realized that the message was still much shorter than he wanted it to be.

"It lacks… something," Luke insisted. "I don't know. Maybe I should forget about a message and just go in guns blazing."

But Leia was already shaking her head. "That wouldn't do a thing to free Han. Think of it as giving Jabba a chance to release Han first, then go in guns blazing."

"That way, we can at least say we asked first, right?" Luke inquired to make sure that he understood this concept of political maneuvering. "Sort of like a built in deniability?"

"Exactly."

"Okay. Then we should say something that's a warning, too, something that makes us not seem so… weak."

"You're right. Jabba needs to know that he shouldn't underestimate you."

"But we want him to underestimate me… don't we?"

Leia laid a hand on Luke's arm in comfort. "Don't worry, he will. We just don't want him to know that we expect him to."

How could it be good to want one thing, but say you want another? "Huh?"

Grinning, Leia simply said, "You take care of the rescuing bit, and let me take care of the politics."

"Whatever you say, Princess." Luke sounded less than certain.

"This is what I do, Luke, what I trained for," Leia reassured him. "This is how diplomacy works."

" _This_ is diplomacy?" Luke snorted. This was boring if you asked him.

"You don't have to believe it, just say it."

Luke groaned. "Han's never going to let me live this down."

Leia took on a grim expression. "You let me worry about Han. You worry about getting him away from Jabba."

Luke sighed in agreement. "What's next?"

Leia sighed, too. "Here's an idea. Let me write this message, and you can take a look at it when I'm done. Then we can discuss whether or not you think it'll work for us."

Glad to concede such an onerous task to the willing Princess, Luke handed her his palmcom, then hopped up from where he'd been sitting on the floor. "Be my guest. I always was a rotten diplomat, anyway. I'll be checking over my X-wing if you need me."

"You have your comlink?"

Luke patted the side of his black belt. "Right here. Tell me when you're done." With that he disappeared through the door of her quarters.

Leia sighed in satisfaction at the quiet he left behind.. "Teaching him diplomacy is like teaching table manners to Han." She adjusted the palmcom to recognize her voice, then instructed, "Record." With no more hesitation, she began.

######

Luke had barely reached the hangar bay when his comlink beeped. Lifting it from his belt, Luke kept walking towards his X-wing, certain that it couldn't be Leia yet. "Skywalker."

Surprisingly, it _was_ Leia. "Luke, I'm done."

"Already?"

Leia laughed a short little laugh that gladdened Luke's heart. It had been ages since Princess Leia had laughed. "What can I say? I'm highly motivated in this case. Come on back and take a look."

"On my way." Luke reversed his direction to head back to Leia's quarters as quickly as his boots could carry him. It was too bad Master Yoda hadn't taught him how to fly. He might be strong with the Force, but he still needed an X-wing to do that.

Luke set a fast pace back to the Princess's quarters while reminding himself not to expect too much of Leia's message. This was a rough draft, after all, and might need some editing before it reached the point where he was certain that it would do what he wanted. Jabba had to be angry enough to take him prisoner, but not so angry that he instantly killed him. He had to feel bad about Luke, but good about himself, still angry at Han, but not want to kill him, either, at least, not yet. If Luke remembered all the stories he'd heard about Jabba the Hutt while growing up, he wouldn't have to work hard to keep him confident, even arrogant. But it was essential that Jabba be angry enough to capture him. He needed to be captured and brought on board Jabba's sail barge, just like all his prisoners. That was when the real fun would begin.

But first… the message. It had to be aggressive, but not too aggressive. Assertive, but not too assertive. Pandering, but not too pandering. Luke sighed. Leia really had her work cut out for her.

The Princess was waiting for him in her quarters with the door open, looking so pleased with herself that she rivaled Jabba in self pride. She held out the palmcom to him the moment he entered. "Read it and tell me what you think."

Not wanting to dampen such enthusiasm, but sure it would still need a lot of work, Luke took the device and hesitantly began to read.

 _Greetings, Exalted One. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and friend to Captain Solo. I know that you are powerful, mighty Jabba, and that your anger with Solo must be equally powerful. I seek an audience with Your Greatness to bargain for Solo's life. (_ Pause here so that the audience has a chance to laugh at you _) With your wisdom, I'm sure that we can work out an arrangement which will be mutually beneficial and enable us to avoid any unpleasant confrontation. As a token of my goodwill, I present to you a gift: these two droids. Both are hardworking and will serve you well._

Leia closely watched Luke's face. "What do you think?"

Luke fought to contain his pleased surprise. It was already as near to perfect as it could get, but he was pretty sure that he didn't want her to know that. Dealing with the Princess was rather like dealing with Jabba the Hutt…. only she was a whole lot prettier.

"It's good… just right." Leia smiled, and he hastily cut her off. "But what about the warning we thought should go in here?"

"Oh, that's right. A warning." Leia took the palmcom from Luke to critically eye her work.

"Yeah, something like 'Don't push me, or you'll regret it.'"

Leia's eyebrows rose. "That's a bit blunt, don't you think?"

"Jabba appreciates bluntness."

"But it doesn't match the tone of the rest of the message," Leia objected.

They had to match a tone? "It's a case of 'give me what I want, and I'll think about not killing you.' There is no tone."

Leia just shook her head. "Trust me, Luke, there's a tone. It's sort of flowery, butters him up, it's really fancy…. Let's try, 'But I warn you not to underestimate my powers.'"

Luke hesitantly asked, "Do we really want to mention my abilities with the Force?"

"You've already said that you're a Jedi."

"Oh, good point."

Leia thoughtfully amended herself. "On second thought, maybe you shouldn't mention a warning just yet… save it for if you have to face him in person."

Luke sighed. "Okay."

"Now read it."

Luke did as he was told, all the while thinking that Leia reminded him now of Yoda. They were equally demanding. "I have to admit, Leia, this is good. It's exactly what we need." He beamed at her. "Now all I have to do is record this to Artoo's databanks, and we're all set." He turned to leave her quarters so he could do just that.

Leia grabbed his arm. "Wrong. You have to practice saying this till you can say it in your sleep. The words have to be right, the inflection just so, the obeisance completely perfect, the…"

"Obei… what?"

Leia just rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it. I'll show you. Now you stand here, and I'll sit." She sank into the one chair in her room while she directed Luke to stand before her.

Luke felt like an idiot just standing there. "What do you want me to do? Show Jabba examples of my power?"

"No, just practise."

Luke didn't understand. "Practise what?"

"For starters, just let me hear you read it. Then I'll know what needs more work, and we can go from there."

She couldn't be serious. "But Artoo isn't here to record it."

"You probably won't be ready to record this till next week."

"Next week?" Luke gulped. How could such a simple message possibly take so much work?

"Remember," Leia soothed, "I know what I'm doing. Now read."

Luke read, then pretended not to see Leia's horrified look.

She politely suggested, "Be more pandering, less aggressive. Try it again."

Luke instantly acquiesced.

Leia was only less horrified. "Even more pandering. Try again."

Luke gave an internal sigh, already feeling irritated with this message. But this was for Han's sake, so he gave himself a mental shake, and concentrated on implementing her suggestion.

When he was done, Leia vigorously rubbed her hands across her face so that Luke had to use the Force to hear her softly say to herself, "I have a bad feeling about this."

The End


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Saber Making

C-3PO fretted in a shaft of hot Tatooine sunlight that filtered into Ben Kenobi's old hut. "Master Luke, are you sure this is a good idea? What if we're disintegrated on sight?"

Concentrating on what he was doing rather than what the droid was saying, Luke gave only half his attention to his answer. "Stop worrying, Threepio. Jabba never disintegrates droids."

Artoo whistled what sounded like his agreement with Luke.

Threepio scathingly replied to Artoo, "That says how much you know, you bolt factory! Why, just yesterday, one of the pilots was telling me that-"

"That's got it!" Luke slipped the last piece into place and held out his first handmade lightsaber for inspection. "What do you think?" The shaft winked in the sunlight.

Artoo whistled enthusiastically.

Threepio automatically translated for his astromech friend. "He says that it looks pretty." Then he turned on his stubby companion. "Honestly Artoo, is that the only thing you can say?"

Luke pushed the power button on the saber as Threepio chattered, and its green blade snapped to life. Luke swished it first one way, then the other, delighted at how seamlessly it responded to his every whim. It was almost like the weapon was reading his thoughts. The saber hummed innocently with deadly energy the entire time.

Threepio paused in his tirade to watch Luke put the saber through its paces. "Artoo's right. It _is_ pretty."

"Pretty, but deadly," Luke added, thinking of all that he could do with a weapon such as this. Then he immediately corrected himself: all the things that he _was going_ to do with it.

As if to prove to himself that it was truly a lightsaber, Luke thrust the glowing blade at the nearby wall. The green blade instantly ate a hole through the sandblasted stone, emerging unscathed on the other side.

Luke critically gazed at his work, happy to note that, yes, it did work just like a lightsaber should. "Good thing I did that to an inside wall. Who knows what I could have hurt on the outside of this hut." He pulled the blade back to his side and stared at the hole he'd just made. The perfect representation of a round lightsaber blade met his eye. The hole smoked slightly, filling the hut with an acrid smell.

The possibility that there could be something outside the hut was not news that Threepio wanted to hear. "Master Luke, you'd tell us if something was out there, wouldn't you?"

Chuckling, Luke replied, "Relax, Threepio. There's nothing outside the hut." Nothing he could sense, at any rate.

Soothed by Luke's words if not the odor now encompassing the hut, the golden droid went back to fretting. "I do hope that if Mistress Leia goes into that awful Palace, Chewbacca is able to protect her, and that together they are able to free Captain Solo from the carbonite." He gestured at himself and Artoo. "I doubt that we will be able to assist much in this situation."

It was all Luke could do at that moment not to give the entire plan away to the talkative droid. "Give yourself some credit, Threepio. You and Artoo are more important than you realize." Luke busied himself with cleaning up the tools he had used to make his lightsaber. "Besides, she has to do more than just free Han from the carbonite," he reminded as he worked. "If Jabba won't agree with my request to negotiate, then it's up to her to get Han out of the Palace."

"Captain Calrissian will assist her."

"Maybe," Luke conceded. "Hopefully, Jabba will see reason, and he won't have to."

"'Hopefully?'" Threepio repeated in horror. "Oh dear!"

Luke allowed himself a smile at the droid's dramatics. "Stop worrying, Threepio! Everything is right on schedule. With any luck, my message inside Artoo will convince him, but I bet that Leia and Chewie are ready in case there's trouble."

Like it was listening in on Luke's conversation with the droids, a beep abruptly sounded from Artoo.

"Oh my!" Threepio said, his golden arms in the air. "That's the signal that Mistress Leia is in place and ready to infiltrate the Palace if necessary."

"Well, looks like you're up," Luke said, his tone now full of optimism for Threepio's sake. If Jabba refused to negotiate, and if Leia and Chewie also failed, it was up to him. In spite of the odds against rescuing Han from Jabba, Luke felt confident that he and his friends would once again achieve the impossible. "Artoo, come here."

R2D2 rolled to stand patiently beside the young Jedi, beeping questioningly.

There was no need for Threepio to interpret that sound. "Open your dome for me," Luke commanded, and as soon as Artoo's metal casing slid aside, nestled the now deactivated lightsaber into the space among the wires and cables that made up Artoo's inner workings. Being circumspect, considering who was listening to their conversation, Luke asked, "Now, are you sure about everything?"

Artoo beeped, and Threepio anxiously translated, "He says that he is." Artoo slid his dome's metal casing back into place as Threepio talked. No one would ever suspect that there was a lightsaber inside the little droid.

Luke patted Artoo's domed head in satisfaction. "Good." He sat back to study the two droids one last time. "I wish that I could think of a better way to send that message to Jabba than to use Artoo's video link. Thanks for taking it to him, you two. Better get started walking to Jabba's Palace now."

"Ooooh!" Threepio shuddered, then seemed to gather his metallic wits together. "If we must, we must. Come along, Artoo. We can't leave Captain Solo in that awful place for a moment longer than necessary."

Artoo rolled up beside his friend, whistling that he was ready for anything. At the last minute, he swivelled his head dome back towards Luke, back to the door of the hut, back to Luke, then resolutely followed his friend through the door.

Luke sighed once more, squaring his shoulders. This was it. No turning back now. He grimmly peered out the hut's front door. Threepio and Artoo were already a good distance away. With any luck, they would be inside Jabba's Palace in an hour. In two, Jabba would have heard his message, underestimated both the message and him, and the mission would begin.

And then…

Jabba wouldn't know what hit him.

The End


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Droid Prep

Artoo carefully rolled up the ramp that led to Jabba's currently unused sail barge. The ramp opened into a large room with a dais at one end, surrounded by narrow rectangular openings covered with slats to keep out the sun.

"The Master enjoys executing his prisoners, but he doesn't wish the sunlight to ruin the paint while he does it," explained the nasal voice of the obnoxious FX droid that was showing him around his new worksite.

Artoo let him talk, knowing that any information might be useful once Master Luke set about rescuing Captain Solo. The Jedi was counting on him, and Artoo wouldn't let him down.

The FX unit continued, "You will have a serving tray affixed to your dome while Master Jabba is on the barge, and when he's not, you will still have plenty to do. The Master gets very excited when executing prisoners. He tends to make a mess, and the others in his court are no better. We must keep the sail barge in readiness for when Master Jabba wishes to use it again."

Artoo let him chatter on. He reminded the astromech droid a bit of his companion C-3PO. It felt soothing to his logic circuits to be chatted to by a fussy protocol droid.

Artoo rolled down another ramp. The FX unit had paused to stare at a heap of metal parts at the bottom of the ramp. "I see that no one has cleaned up this former KB unit. How does anyone expect us to do a proper job in these conditions?"

Artoo beeped a question.

"This is the remains of the droid you're replacing. He was shot three nights ago. I expect someone from Jabba's party got lost, then used KayBee for target practise. It happens all the time."

Artoo gave a worried whistle, all the while knowing that Lando Calrissian had laid in wait for any droid assigned to the sail barge to appear, and had shot this KB unit several times at point blank range. Master Luke needed a droid on the sail barge in order to complete his upcoming mission, and like any good inside man, Lando had taken care of it for him to make way for Artoo to save the day.

"Don't worry," the FX unit said now. "Stay away from trouble, and it will stay away from you." He looked both bored and proud of himself as he said the words, like he had said them many time before, but they didn't lose their power with the retelling.

"Over here are the drink dispensers." FX gestured at a wall covered by barrels and spigots " _Don't_ mess up the Master's drink orders. An R9 unit did that once, and the Master shot it himself, then had it thrown over the side into the Sarlacc pit. I don't recommend finding out if it will happen again." Artoo's second whistle was downright distressed.

Artoo slowly followed FX back up to the audience chamber, then up another ramp to the top deck. Now Artoo's interest was truly piqued. In order to carry out Master Luke's orders, he would have to be positioned near the edge of the deck. Artoo scouted out the best location as FX prattled on.

Finally, he became aware that FX was yelling at him. He swivelled his dome around so that his eye sensor was aimed in the correct direction to stare at him.

"You aren't even listening to me!" FX said more loudly, his version of yelling. He gestured towards the surrounding sand. "If you wish to view the nearby desert, I suggest you do it on your own time. Jabba does not take kindly to droids that don't do their work. I hear your former master thought of you as hardworking. He must not have been very demanding. Jabba is different; _he's_ your master now."

Artoo gave an agreeable whistle, but if Threepio had been there, he could have told FX just what Artoo thought of that comment. But Threepio wasn't here. He was assigned to Jabba's main audience chamber, and was far too busy for things as mundane as serving drinks. Artoo was alone on this mission.

But he was up to the task. As Artoo followed FX down the ramp to the deck below, he continued to scout out the top deck until the last possible moment, calculating angles and trajectories. He quickly ruled out the first three possibilities, but his fourth idea had merit. Yes, to best help Master Luke, he should stand _right there._

The End


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Wookie Thoughts

Chewbacca gave a mighty roar, shaking his hairy fists at the guards. The Gamorreans weren't remotely threatened by his two hairy fists. They simply shoved him all the harder in the direction of the Palace dungeons.

Chewie wasn't concerned by the guards' callous behavior. He had expected it, really. The reason for his growl and waving fists wasn't to threaten the guards. He had been testing for any weakness in the guards' treatment of prisoners to see if he could take advantage of such behavior. But the guards were trained well at what they did. They didn't even blink twice at the Wookie's apparent strength. That meant they were confident in the integrity of Jabba's prison cells, as well as their own security skills. Their behavior didn't leave any weakness to exploit. Chewie wasn't much encouraged by any of it.

The likelihood of Chewbacca escaping on his own was growing dimmer by the moment. It looked as if he really would need the help of the boy after all. This didn't sit well with the Wookie, naturally. Though he had experienced Force users in the past, he preferred to rely on his brute strength for things like escapes rather than the boy's untried abilities in manipulating energy fields that he couldn't see.

As the Gamorreans urged him to run headlong into a dingy cell, his last free thought was to hope that Han was safe enough still in his carbonite slab. At least he wouldn't do anything fun without him.

The plan was a good one, he reminded himself. It would work.

It had to.

Chewie let out a mournful growl as the cell door slammed shut and locked with an ominous clank.

At least Jabba hadn't seen fit to send that annoying droid to prison with him. Though the droidless cell was dirty, dark, and dank, the prisoner accommodations at Jabba's Palace beat the Cloud City prisons, hands down!

The End


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Dress Uniform

 _That's it?_ Leia thought in dismay as she examined the tiny bit of metal and material that passed for a slave girl's costume at Jabba's Palace. _Where's the rest of it?_

The costume that Jabba preferred his dancing girls to wear had a lot to be desired, most notably that this was the first outfit Leia had ever worn that needed to be glued on.

Leia turned left in front of the mirror in the dress room at Jabba's Palace, then right, trying to discern if any part of her natural amenities were immodestly hanging out. She only saw that there was less to this costume than she had first realized.

"It looks perfect," the dressing aid said, fending off the boredom that typically set in at having to accustom the new girls to this particular costume. Nobody liked it… except Jabba. And Jabba got what Jabba liked. "How does it feel?"

Leia looked at her image in the mirror at the costume-that-wasn't and decided that it was a good thing Han couldn't see her in this. He wouldn't like the fact that it enticed others to look at what he had the most right to notice. "The boots are nice."

The aid smirked. "Honey, trust me, nobody's going to be looking at your boots."

"Better that than… other things." Flushing in embarrassment, Leia hastily pulled her braid over her shoulder to cover her blush, but in reality used the abrupt movement to surreptitiously take in the layout of the room. She didn't know what might be useful for Luke to know later when he rescued Han… as he was going to have to do, since her ruse as a bounty hunter had failed to get Han out of Jabba's Palace.

On the subject of the bounty hunter, she hoped that Chewie and Han were doing all right in the dungeons. Most of her concern right now was admittedly for Han. He had just enough confidence in even his blind prowess that she felt the need to worry about him doing something rash. At the same time, she knew that Chewie would take care of him.

Luke would set things right when he got here. All she had to do was wait for him to come. In the meantime, she had to prepare herself to help him as best she could. Gathering intel of even the dress room was the least she could do.

Leia turned to see her profile in the mirror just in time for a sudden knock on the door to interrupt her perusal of herself and the room. The aid called, "Yes?"

The guard Tamtel, aka Lando, opened the door, eyes cast discreetly onto the ground. "Are you ready, Princess… uh, Queen… uh, ma'am…" A small wince showed him to be internally yelling at himself for his near blunder.

"Call me Leia," she replied with a sharp glance in the direction of her companion. Fortunately, the aid was busy making certain the outfit hung just right on Leia and hadn't noticed Lando's slip.

Lando continued speaking to Leia. "Jabba's asking for you. Come with me, and I'll take you back to the main audience chamber." He wrapped a rough hand around Leia's arm to give her a yank towards the door. The purple lower half of the slave costume billowed in their wake, leaving little to the imagination, and leaving Lando disgusted anew at Jabba's willingness to treat his slaves with such depravity.

But he mustn't show such disgust, even though it was the Princess' modesty in question this time. To show it would be a death warrant. After all, the aid was still watching them.

Collecting his wits just as the door lifted open, Lando looked down and swiftly said, "Nice boots."

The End


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Dungeon Dialogue

"I hate the way we're just sitting here, waiting to die." Han's voice floated out of the darkness of Jabba's prison cell, sounding like he'd already given up.

That was what Luke wanted Jabba to think; that they'd both given up. This way of thinking would most likely cause Jabba to feel overconfident. Luke knew that an overconfident foe was a foe that was more easily defeated.

Unfortunately, it wasn't such a stretch of the imagination for Jabba to feel confident. Most people _would_ give up after that scene in Jabba's Audience Chamber where Threepio described their future deaths in excruciating detail.

"I wonder where Leia is," Han said, again sounding defeated. Or was it the cell that made him sound like that?

Luke wanted him to sound defeated, but it still didn't hurt to be soothing at the same time. "As long as she can stand being near that slug, she'll be fine."

"Fine you say?" Han snorted. "You forget that I've known Jabba a lot longer than you have. I know what he can do to her."

"And that would be..?"

"I'm doing my best not to think about it."

"How's that going for you?"

Han grunted, "It's not as easy as it used to be."

Han sounded like a man consumed by mental anguish. Luke wanted him to come off as defeated, yes, but defeat didn't need to sound so _hopeless_. "I'll distract you. Talk to me."

"Tell me your version of what's been going on," Han immediately replied. "Chewie told me that you didn't rendezvous with the fleet after Hoth the way you were supposed to. And he said something about your hand?"

These reminders of what he had left unfinished on Dagobah because he had rushed off to meet Vader at Cloud City left Luke feeling more unsure about himself than he'd felt since returning to the Alliance several months before. "I…" Luke's voice trailed away, and the darkness sucked it up like a black hole.

Han obviously heard the unease in Luke's voice, and prompted, "You… what?"  
Luke cleared his throat in determination. "I owe you an apology, Han."

This puzzled the Corellian. "For what?"

Luke stayed silent for a minute, recalling the final conversation he'd had with Yoda and Obi-Wan before he'd left for Cloud City. "You were tortured because of me. You and Leia… and Chewie were… Threepio was blasted apart, and..." He was too choked up to go on. He instantly began a Jedi meditation to regain control of his feelings, and was eventually able to say, "I caused so much damage."

"Hey, you didn't cause it," Han placated, his voice rough with disuse. "The way I remember it, Vader threw me into that Carbon Freezing pit, not you."

Luke's breath hitched just slightly at the mention of his father's current name. The slight hiccup irritated him. He thought that he had accepted everything that had transpired on Cloud City. To find out _now,_ in Jabba's dungeon, in the middle of a chancy rescue mission, that he was still having issues with the events surrounding the reason for this rescue was not welcome news.

But Han quickly distracted him from this insight. "There's nothing you could have done to stop what happened, Luke. Vader is… well, he's Vader, and what Vader wants, Vader gets."

 _He didn't get me,_ ghosted Luke's thoughts. But he kept those thoughts to himself. He would have to explain far more than he wanted to if he said those words out loud. So he remained silent, something he would have been incapable of doing just a few months ago. He considered how far he had come just in those weeks. If Yoda could accomplish that much with a student as recalcitrant as he was, then Yoda truly was a master.

"In fact, I'm amazed that Leia and Chewie got out of that Cloud City mess alive." Han grunted, a sound that was partly made up of surprise, and partly an unexpected humility. "Chewie told me that I have Lando to thank for that. I never would have pegged Lando Calrissian as having the quality to become a hero. I guess I owe him a bunch." His following groan was less audible. "He rescued you, he rescued Leia and Chewie… too bad he isn't here, huh?"

"Yeah, too bad." This conversation was becoming surreal to Luke, for Lando was very much present, if undercover. But Luke knew that he couldn't say anything specific that related to the plan to rescue Han. This cell was most likely outfitted with listening devices, with Jabba hearing their every word. To say something, even to reassure Han, would be tantamount to committing treason against Leia, Lando, and Chewie. He wouldn't dare let them down now. The plan was right on schedule, in spite of the seemingly dismal situation they all found themselves in.

Han sighed a huge breath of the foul dungeon air. "We could really use some help of the hero variety right about now." His second sigh illustrated the hopelessness he felt.

It was a sound that didn't surprise Luke all that much. Han didn't know what he had become. His last encounter with Han had happened months ago, before the Battle of Hoth. He'd been a different person then, one barely able to care for himself, to say nothing of someone who could pull off such a difficult rescue operation. The effects of his recent time spent with Yoda was obvious if you saw him, but since Han couldn't see, he still visualized Luke as the somewhat awkward kid brother who was a good pilot, but nothing like the Jedi he had become. Luke had definitely changed since he'd last seen Han; he'd trained with a Jedi Master on a distant planet, found his father, lost his hand, gone through weeks of soul searching to finally accept his parentage, and practiced till he could use the Force in his sleep. He was ready for anything a paltry gangster like Jabba the Hutt could throw at him.

They were silent while Luke meditated on this subject, so silent that he thought Han had fallen asleep... which is what he should do, too. Instead, he asked, "Are you still blind?"

Han's answer was quick, efficient, and sleepless. "Either I am, or it's just dark in here. Or both."

"It's dark. Get some sleep, Han. We need to keep up our strength for whatever happens at the Sarlacc Pit."

"I'll sleep when you sleep."

"How will you know if I sleep or not if you can't see me?"

Han's trademark smirk sounded loud in his sardonic voice. "I'll know; trust me."

Luke hadn't realized how much he had missed that particular sarcastic gesture of Han's until now. "Where have I heard that before?"

Han balked. "Hey, I'm trustworthy! At least I didn't say, 'I have a bad feeling about this.'" He turned grim. "Though now might be an appropriate time to say that."

"Now's not the time to lose heart." Luke's gentle admonition sounded flat and heartless in the fetid dungeon.

Han was even more grim. "Now's a good time to tell me you have a plan to miraculously rescue all of us."

Instead of being forced to lie by answering, Luke changed the subject. "I haven't seen Leia in any of the other cells."

As a way to distract Han, it worked better than Luke had hoped. "I'm telling you, I know how Jabba operates, and he's not gonna let her out of his sight." Han fidgeted uncomfortably on the dirt floor. "Besides, I can't smell her down here."

This bit of information surprised Luke. "She has a certain smell?"

"Of course she does," Han grumbled. "She smells like soap and… and that special Princess smell."

Luke couldn't resist asking, " _What_ is a Princess smell?"

Now Han looked even more uncomfortable, but in an embarrassed way. "It's… kind of… like… like… she smells like the _Falcon._ "

Luke didn't have the heart to laugh at all now. "She's been living on the _Falcon_ ever since Cloud City."

"There," Han said, vindicated. "I thought I could smell it on her. Just don't tell her I said so, or I'll never hear the end of it."

"She won't hear a word from me."

Han scowled, singularly unwilling to be soothed. "You're humoring me; I can tell. I may be blind, but I'm not deaf."

Luke sighed in temporary defeat. "Get some rest, Han. I need to think."

"Think of a way to save Leia. Don't worry about me."

Before he could reply to this insane idea, Chewbacca rumbled that he should save Han as well as Leia, but to forget about him. Luke had thought the Wookie was asleep, but apparently not.

Again before he had the chance to say anything, Han quickly insisted, "Jedi Skywalker will save _all of us._ Right?"

The amount of hope in Han's voice was painful to hear, but it was still too dangerous for Luke to say anything specific, or even confirm that he had a plan. "I really wish I could do just that." His mind rang with Yoda's words _Do, or do not. There is no try._

For the first time since he'd gone to Dagobah to train to be a Jedi, Luke wanted to tell Master Yoda to just shut up.

The End


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: On Board the _Falcon,_ Part I

Images of Jabba's sail barge blowing up still in mind, Leia literally ran into Chewbacca on her way back to the _Falcon's_ cockpit. Once they had bounced off each other in the narrow corridor, Leia moved aside to give the large Wookie some room to maneuver. He growled a greeting to her (at least, she thought it was a greeting) then indicated the back of the ship where Han was using one of the bunks for a quick nap, and Threepio was waiting to have his eye repaired. She figured out from gestures and growls that the hairy Wookie was going to sit with Han while attempting the delicate task of resetting the droid's eye. "If you can fix him, you'll be a hero in both of Threepio's eyes, the good and the bad," she predicted.

Chewie woofed a laugh, particularly at the eye joke she had worked into her comment. He patted her on the back with one hairy paw ('slugged' is the more appropriate word) and sauntered away.

Leia pushed the button to manually open the cockpit door and entered. The door snapped shut behind her, closing her in with her intended quarry of the moment, Lando Calrissian.

Still dressed in his guard uniform, minus the hat, Lando cut a dashing figure while working the controls of the ship. His hands were as relaxed on those controls as Han's had ever been, as if feeling the _Falcon's_ worn levers and switches was a welcome sensation.

Leia slipped effortlessly into the co-pilot's chair. "Mind if I join you?"

Surprised at the sound of her voice, Lando jumped. "I thought you were back with Han."

"I was. Chewie is going to look in on him, but we don't expect much trouble from Han for a while."

Lando gave half his attention to her and half to the Nav computer's readouts. "How is our resident carbon expert?"

Leia couldn't suppress her grin. "After spending the last year asleep, he's asleep again."

That caught Lando's full attention. "Asleep? I thought he was over his need to sleep."

"It was the oddest thing," Leia said. "One minute he was commenting on my outfit, or lack of it, and the next minute, he was snoring."  
"Han snores?"

"He does now. I changed clothes, and since he's still sleeping, I came up here looking for you."

The Princess' statement surprised Lando again. "Why?" His expression grew worried. "Whatever it was, tell Han that I didn't do it."

"It's not what you did," Leia patiently explained. "But what you didn't do."

"Huh?"

"You're one of the two people at Jabba's Palace who didn't ogle me in my outfit, and I appreciate it."

"Luke didn't ogle, either," Lando pointed out.

"Luke's a Jedi, and doesn't count."

Lando snorted his amusement. "Luke may be a Jedi, but he's a man first and foremost. Out of curiosity, who was the other man who didn't ogle you?"

"Boba Fett."

"You mean that even Han ogled?"

Leia smiled a little smile. "I don't mind that Han ogled. But the leering of the guards was only a little less creepy than Jabba's leering."

"Why didn't you say something if they were making you uncomfortable?"

Leia sighed in resignation. "We were there for one reason; to rescue Han. If I had to endure a few nasty looks in order to do that, it was a small price to pay."

"Killing off Jabba should make Han very happy," Lando predicted. When Leia glanced at him in question, he added, "No more debt to pay off."

"No more price on his head." she said in satisfaction.

Lando eyed her. "Han will be able to stay with the Fleet now, no problem. Think he will?"

Leia took on a grim expression. "As soon as I talk to him about that, I'll let you know."

An awkwardness that hadn't been palpable before invaded the tiny cockpit. Lando's feelings of guilt skyrocketed. "Listen, Princess, I hope you don't hold it against me that I was the main reason behind Han's Carbon Freezing. I certainly didn't intend for it to go as far as it did. In fact, Lord Vader-"

"I don't blame you," Leia quickly said. "You know that. Or you should." They had never spoken of his role in the Cloud City fiasco of the year before. "Nobody who deals with Vader ever comes out on top."

"Except Luke."

"Luke came out alive," Leia amended.

"That's 'on top' in my book."

"I'm not sure if Luke would agree with you."

But Lando was adamant. "Going up against a Dark Lord is no small thing, and surviving that encounter is even more impressive. I'm not sure if anybody else can say the same."

Leia couldn't help her grin. "Luke often mentioned that Jabba seemed like a second rate gangster after dealing with Vader."

Lando agreed. "As today proved, Jabba was nothing that he couldn't handle. Wait until he gets the reputation as the man who took out Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett on the same day." He looked full on at Leia, daring her to argue with him.

Leia's reply was a far cry from an argument. "It can't do the Rebellion any harm, either."

Lando's laugh rang in the cockpit. "Princess, if it weren't for Chewie's promise to rip my arms out of their sockets if I so much as look at you, Han would have some stiff competition for your favors!" He shook his head in appreciation. "A Princess with a brain, not to mention excellent wit!" His appreciation increased. "What I wouldn't do for things to be different."

Leia's icy calm remained. "You forget, Administrator, your charm doesn't work on me. You may want things to be different, but I don't."

"More's the pity." Lando pouted. "If I knew you were going to be so cavalier, I would have looked at you in that dancing costume while I had the chance."

"Stop flirting," Leia said in exasperation.

"I can't help but flirt."

"And Chewie can't help but rip your arms out of their sockets."

"Good point."

"Even if Han doesn't want me now, I want him. End of story."

"That's _one_ ending."

Leia's exasperation was at the breaking point. "Maybe Chewie and I should have left you in Cloud City."

"And miss my charming conversation?" Lando gave a devilish grin. "No matter how you put it, Han owes me for keeping my hands off you all these months."

"Careful, or I'll take your hands off myself… attached to your wrists."

Lando appreciatively grinned. "I certainly hope you'll try."

The End


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: On Board the _Falcon,_ Part II

Leia ran into Chewie again just as the cockpit door slid aside for her to leave. "Uff!"

Chewie woofed a laugh, then barked something that the Princess interpreted as, 'Han awake asking you.'

Sidling around the hairy mound that was Chewbacca, Leia gestured towards the cockpit. "Lando is all yours, Chewie."

Lando gave an incredulous laugh from the pilot's chair. "You don't know what you're missing, Princess."

"Yes, I do," Leia said with a smile. "I'll be with Han if you need me."

Chewie barked again, but Leia was too keen to start a conversation with Han for the first time in months to waste any more time thinking about either the Wookie or Lando Calrissian. She traded places with Chewbacca, then hurried away down the narrow corridor.

She found Han wearing what looked like the same shirt and trousers he'd been frozen in, but could tell by the smell that he had changed clothes just as she had. "I bet you feel much better."

Han swivelled the console chair he sat in, openly drinking in the sight of Leia. "I do now."

Leia would have been incensed at such blatant appreciation only months ago. Now, however, there were more important things to get emotional about. He immediately opened his arms to her, and with a shy grin, Leia gladly let him wrap her in a hug that she had been anticipating for a great deal of time.

"I'd stand up to do this properly," Han began with an affectionate smile, "but I'd lose my balance and we'd both end up on the floor."

Personally, Leia didn't think that would be so bad, but a detour to the deck plates didn't fit in well with her conversational plans. "I can't believe you're back. I waited for this day for so long that I stopped waiting a long time ago." She hugged him with all her might.

"Guess we both owe a lot to the kid, huh?"

"You have no idea," Leia said. "Luke never gave up on rescuing you even when I lost hope that it would ever happen."

Han heaved a heavy breath. "Chewie told me a little about him, but when I asked Luke, he wouldn't say anything. What's going on with him?"

Leia knew that what she could tell Han about Luke would fill a datacrystal. What she wasn't able to tell him would fill several more. "Luke's a Jedi Knight."

Han frowned. "That's what Chewie said. But you don't look happy that he's some super Force guy now. What's really going on?"

Leia shook her head, and her braid swished across her shoulders with it. "I _am_ happy, but I'm not sure he is."

"What - did he get some bad training or something?"

"No," Leia said, puzzled. "I think he learned something that's made him unhappy."

"You don't know what it is?"

"He won't tell me." Leia shook her head again, as if shaking off something unfortunate. "But Luke isn't what I want to talk about right now."

The effect on Han was immediate. "Uh-oh. I know that tone." He slowly disengaged from their shared embrace.

"What's wrong with my tone?"

"You're getting serious," Han replied as if it was obvious what that meant. "Here it is, what I've been waiting for ever since you woke me up."

 _He thinks I'm going to break things off_. "It's not like that."

"It's exactly like that," Han gruffly retorted. "Don't keep me in suspense, Princess."

Leia sank into the nearest chair and faced him, determined to air her worries no matter how uncomfortable it made her. "Listen before you go all space smuggler on me. I'm not here to break things off with you. And I don't want to take back what I said in Cloud City. I also don't expect anything to happen because of it."

The frown was back. "Maybe you should."

But Leia shook her head. "I don't want to suddenly tie you down with expectations. I knew what I was getting into back then… yesterday for you." Han didn't comment, and she went on after taking his hands in a gentle caress. "I know what people expect of you because you're a pirate and a smuggler. At the same time, I know what everyone expects of me because I'm a princess. But I know what I want to do instead, and I know that somebody will be unhappy with me no matter what I choose."

Han gave a sound that was amazingly similar to a Bantha grinding its teeth. "Stop talking in riddles, Princess. Tell it to me straight."

Leia had expected to hear his more typical pet name of 'Your Worshipfulness;' this second use of her more formal title gave her a bad case of the chills. "I know my feelings, and they aren't going to change. The Rebel Council won't be happy with this decision, but I'm not in love with the Rebel Council. My fellow Alderaanians won't be happy, either, but I can't say that I care right now. I'm more concerned with what you think."

She might be waiting with more patience than she showed on most occasions, but that didn't chase away Han's confusion. "All right," he drawled. "You're still talking in riddles. What do I think about what?"

Leia thought she'd been quite clear, but was willing to humor him; he'd been in hibernation for months, after all. "Us." When he didn't say anything right away, she added, "I don't expect anything from you that you can't give right now, like I told you, but I do want to know what you think."

A silent moment went by, then Han gusted a huge burst of air in response. "I'm trying not to just give you the answer that I think you want, but at the same time, I don't want to say what I think all those others want, either."

Leia gave a wry half smile in spite of the situation. "What do _you_ want?"

Han matched her half grin with a wry one of his own. "What I want might not be possible. What you want might not be possible, either."

"We've been doing the impossible since we met."

And just like that, Han burst out laughing, and the tension vanished. "I don't know, Your Worship, does a plain old pirate have a chance with royalty?"

"You're no more plain than I am," Leia sarcastically noted. "My point is that I don't expect you to give up the _Falcon_ or your independence, and I won't leave the Rebel Alliance. So now what?"

With the tension gone, Han was much more relaxed. "Sweetheart, everyone's gonna have one expectation or another of us, but I don't care about it if you don't. I've stuck around this long, and it wasn't because of how much I wanted to impress the Rebel Council, or your planetless population, and it wasn't because of Luke, though he played a part in it, and might think it was all about him."

"No, he doesn't."

Han leaned in till their foreheads almost touched. "Leia, I don't care what everyone thinks, or expects. I care about _you_. Let's try this."

"What if it doesn't work out?"

"Then I leave in my ship, and you still have your Rebellion."

"I don't want you to feel you have to leave if you truly care about the Rebellion."  
Han's sigh was one of pure exasperation. "Let's worry about that if the time comes. Agreed?"

Leia's expression became more settled. "That's fair. But don't take on missions just because of me."

"It was never because of you." At her arched brow, Han amended, "Not _just_ because of you." She arched her brow higher. "Okay, mostly because of you, but don't let that go to your head." Han sent her a devilish grin. "You're still 'Your Worship' to me, and don't you forget it."

"Shut up and kiss me, you scoundrel."

"My pleasure."

The End


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: X-wing Interlude

Luke's ship hurtled through hyperspace between Dagobah and Sullust, but he didn't see the blur of stars as they streaked by. He couldn't get the words that Obi-Wan had just said out of his mind. He couldn't believe that Yoda was dead. He couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that he had a sister. It astonished him even more that his sister was Leia!

He didn't know which one aspect of his visit to Dagobah to focus on. Behind it all was a deep sense of befuddlement as to whether he should impart what he had learned to Leia or not. He instinctively knew she would have trouble accepting some of it, yet at the same time, she had a right to know about her origins.

But should he tell her _right now?_ If he did, that might distract her from the coming campaign, whatever that was, and be to her ultimate detriment. He was sure that he didn't want to do that to her. But he didn't want to keep things from her 'for her own good,' either. He knew that was a trap he needed to stay away from. Once he started keeping things from her, he was afraid that he would never stop. Then there was the possibility that she would find out on her own, anyway, and then discover that he had acted as a censor to her. That most likely would not go over well.

As uncomfortable as talking about any of this made him, he knew that avoiding this subject with Leia wouldn't be any better. Besides, there was every chance that he might fail in whatever future action he decided to take, and then she really would be their galaxy's last hope. She had to learn what was at stake, and why, before it was too late.

But he just couldn't focus! Vader was his father. Leia was his sister. He had to face Vader again, and prevail, or it would be over for the Rebellion, and the galaxy as a whole.

Luke shivered in his flight suit. It was just too much to take in.

The swirling stars of hyperspace had nothing on the swirling of Luke's thoughts.

######

All of a sudden, Luke felt tears slip down his cheeks. It had hit him with the harsh abruptness of a laser blast: Yoda was dead. It was true that his first thought on the Jedi Master's demise was that he couldn't fulfill his destiny without his help. But now that he'd had time to think a bit, the selfishness of his first reaction gave way to the unhappy reality that Yoda had disappeared, was gone, dead… forever.

He would never see Yoda again, at least, not in the flesh. The diminutive Jedi Master wouldn't be there to berate him about not remaining calm enough to properly utilize the Force. Yoda would never again give his wise council on matters of the day, wouldn't show Luke how best to tackle the tasks set before him by a galaxy gone haywire with Imperial reign. It was as if the Jedi Master had slipped out of Luke's grasp when he wasn't looking, mercurial to the last.

It was a wrenching moment. Luke felt pain swell in his heart, and an ache the size of Tatooine nestled right next to the hole left by the death of Ben Kenobi. Another Jedi Master had vanished into the Force.

Luke didn't feel like he had lost a teacher. He felt as though he had lost a friend.

######

Tears still drying on his cheeks, more of the truth struck him like a lightsaber blow; _he had a sister._ The thought amazed Luke.

How many times while he was growing up on Tatooine had he longed for a brother or sister to share both the good times and bad? Uncle Owen might not have been so bent on making Luke into a farmer if he'd had another person to focus his energies on.

Or would Aunt Beru have instead been bent on turning Luke's sister into the typical Tatooine girl? Would she have learned to cook, to sew, to take care of the family, to do all those girly things instead of learning farming like he had? Would very little have been different for him?

A chilling thought suddenly accosted Luke: what if one of his teenaged friends had formed some sort of romantic attachment to his sister? A feeling of protectiveness washed over Luke, something that he was becoming familiar with at an alarmingly fast rate. What if she had reciprocated those feelings? Luke didn't know how he would have reacted.

Worse yet, how would Uncle Owen have reacted?

Now Luke delved into the reality of specifically having Leia as his sister. Leia… so small, yet so strong. Luke knew by now not to underestimate her inborn strength, energy, and courage. She may be small, but she was like a stick of dynamite when roused. It wasn't just anybody who could have killed Jabba the Hutt the way she had.

She was always _there_ , always available to hear his rambling thoughts, always ready to offer advice and help and guidance. Luke found himself counting on her in ways that he didn't want to rely on anyone. He above all knew of the fragility of life. He'd seen too many pilots lose their lives in battles with the Empire to think any other way. If something ever happened to her… he didn't know what he would do.

He'd read somewhere in his Jedi research of the last year that the Jedi did not establish close relationships with anyone for this very reason. For the first time, Luke played with the idea that maybe those Jedi of old had had the right idea. Relying on anyone carried with it too big of a risk of getting hurt, of being tempted by grief or anger to turn to the Dark Side. Even now, Luke could imagine how devastated he would feel if he ever lost Leia. It scared him to think of what he might do in his grief.

At the same time, he realized that it was too late for him to put a halt to the affection that he felt towards Leia. Or towards Han for that matter. Or Yoda. Or towards Lando or Chewie. His friends were all a part of him now, and he couldn't drive them out. He wouldn't. He supposed that he would even feel empty without the droids.

He acceded that he could vow never to see her or the others again, but he would break that vow tomorrow if he made it today. He understood how it was best for his future well-being if he resisted the call he felt towards his sister and friends… but what would that do to him in the long run?

It didn't matter anyway. He found himself easily getting used to all of them, but especially to Leia. It just felt _right_ when she was near him, like he wasn't so unfinished, like he could do whatever he set out to do just because he was her brother, and he simply would not let her down. She encouraged him to be a better person just by existing.

Luke knew that Han felt the same way, too. If there was a Princess Leia fan club, he and Han would vie for who was in charge of it at any given time. Which was all right with Luke; he and Han had been competing with each other over the Princess since they'd met her. Luke just hadn't realized that what he felt for Leia was a familial connection rather than a romantic one. He supposed that it would relieve Han to learn that the one person he'd viewed for years as his main competition for Leia's affections was actually not competition at all, but family. Both men could openly love Leia without any bad feelings spent toward the other. To be honest, it was something of a relief to Luke, too.

How would Leia feel about all of this? Luke knew that she wasn't ready to accept that Darth Vader was her father, and perhaps she never would be. But then, he had to remember that Leia had more history with Vader than he did. It was true that Luke had thought for a long time that Vader had murdered his father, and had hated him for that. But Leia had been personally tortured by the man. He'd been the cause of having her one true love ripped away from her for no other reason than to test the carbon freezing chamber in Cloud City for _him_. Vader had held her back while she watched her entire planet explode. How did a person ever get over something like that? She had more reasons to hate Vader than Luke had ever had. It was ridiculous to expect her to suddenly love the guy instead of hate him just because he was her birth father.

Luke tried to predict what it would be like for her to have a brother, and a twin brother to boot. It would probably be confusing, and to have Luke be that brother would be stranger yet. As of now, they shared a happy relationship born of instinctive trust. However, he suspected that it was a good thing they hadn't grown up together. If they had, they probably wouldn't share that friendly relationship. Instead, they might annoy each other to the point that they couldn't stand the sight of the other. He wasn't entirely sure how to treat her now, but at least he didn't abhor the sight of her.

At the same time, he knew exactly how to treat her now, or at least, how he thought he should treat her: with a little deference, a little awe, and a lot of love. In that, nothing had changed.

Again that feeling of protectiveness welled inside him, but he instinctively knew that trying to keep her safe was doomed to failure. He had to let her be herself, faults and all. He suspected that it would be the hardest thing he'd ever done, _much_ harder than learning to be a Jedi.

Was this what was meant by the term 'separation anxiety?' Luke smiled to himself; if it was, he sure didn't intend to tell Leia!

An alarm began to blare in the tiny ship's cockpit, telling him that he had reached the rendezvous point near Sullust. The hole that was Yoda's death still gnawed at him, like the hole that Ben Kenobi's death had left. and he had yet to completely come to terms with his father's identity and past actions But the thought that his sister Leia was waiting for him was a bright spot on an otherwise unpredictable future.

The End


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: _General_ Calrissian?!

Han hurried down the corridor to catch up to General Rieekan before he reached the Rebel cruiser's command center. "General, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Rieekan turned and waited once he saw that it was Han who had hailed him. "Solo, I haven't had a chance to tell you yet that it's good to have you back. We can really get some work done now that we'll no longer have the Princess hounding our every steps to rescue you."

In spite of the feelings that Leia had professed for him, it still surprised Han that she had been so single minded since his carbonization. "I would have expected her to be like that for the Rebellion, but for me… not so much."

"Then you don't know the Princess," chuckled Rieekan. "You're lucky to have her."

Han had to grin. "At least I knew that much already."

Rieekan turned back in the direction of the command center when Han fell into step beside him. "What can I do for you, Solo?"

Han wasted no time now that he'd finally gotten the General alone for a moment. "As much as I like talking about Leia, I'm here to talk about Lando."

"Calrissian? He got back from Tatooine just fine, didn't he?"

"All his arms and legs are in the right places," Han agreed. "I want you to give him a promotion."

That stopped the General. "A promotion?"

Han paused in the corridor with him. "He's joined up with the fleet by now, hasn't he?"

"Well, yes, and he has the rank of commander, the same as Skywalker. He's put it to good use for us, too."

"That's kind of my point," Han next said, uncomfortable, but determined. "He was at the Battle of Tanaab."

Rieekan looked perplexed. "I know, having assigned him to that mission."

Han thoughtfully paused for a second, then amended, "I meant to say that he _was_ the Battle of Tanaab."

Rieekan looked even more perplexed. "What are you saying?"

"Lando's more than just the fair pilot I said he was. He took over the minute Captain Lewis was killed and got the team out alive. _Plus_ he managed to collect all the intel that saved the Rebellion a month later."

"I know. I was part of that command. But if I recall, you were still frozen in carbonite at the time; how do you know-?"

"Luke was also part of that command, and he kept excellent logs on board the _Falcon_. I read them on the way here, and in the last entry, he requested that I speak to you about this on his behalf. He described everything that Lando did in detail, then suggested that he be made a General in the Rebel Fleet. Now here I am, suggesting the same."

Rieekan's interest mounted. "So this is a joint effort?"

"It is after I read Luke's description of the battle. What Lando did against steady odds was impressive."

Rieekan looked convinced. "You're not a man to give compliments lightly, I know, Solo. I'll review Commander Skywalker's logs myself, and bring it up at the next Council meeting. I'll let you know as soon as I have any information."

"Thank you, General." Han nodded and turned away from Rieekan to head for the hangar bay. He turned back just as quickly. "Oh, and General?"

"Yes?"

"Let's keep this between ourselves. There's no need to tell Lando all the nitty-gritty details, is there? It would just embarrass him."

Rieekan smiled, as if he knew the real reason for Han's concern. "Consider it done."

Han grinned. "I owe you one, General."

Rieekan gave a small smile in return. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

The two men walked off down separate corridors, each already thinking about their next task.

And Lando Calrissian never suspected a thing.

The End


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Gearing Up

This was it; the mission to beat all missions was about to get underway. Everything was ready… so Luke thought.

In truth, Luke had no real way of knowing. The Rebel Briefing had ended an hour before. They'd made holos for posterity. They'd eaten one last meal. The fleet was gassed and ready to go. The second Death Star was just waiting to be blown up. It was now or never.

Luke, Han, Lando, and Leia jostled with one another and other Rebel soldiers to be the first to suit up in camouflage and flight gear, ready for the campaign on and above the forest moon of Endor. Some of these members of the Alliance were suiting up for their deaths, Luke knew, and idly wondered if he was one of them. Maybe he didn't have to worry about facing Darth Vader again because he was about to get gunned down by some lucky stormtrooper.

But he knew that thinking about death in such a manner was a quick way to cause his own, so he trained his thoughts on other things, very practiced by now in the art of self deception. Every Rebel had to be. Death was such a constant in their lives that it had almost ceased to be relevant. The best way to deal with the constant stress of death was by ignoring the danger and to be as happy as possible while they had the chance. The only thing waiting for those who became too worried about their own death was constant depression, and what was the point of that? It was just a quick way to exhaust yourself. It was much better to be cheerful like Luke was. The others behaved in the same manner, happily competing with one another for the newest gear. Having the newest and best gadgets just might save a life.

"Hey Chewie, hand me that long coat… yeah, that one," ordered Han Solo, critically eyeing the camouflage coat. It looked much larger now that Han was holding it. "Good pockets; nice and big."

Lando gazed at it with longing. "Got any more of those?"

"Hands off!" Han playfully said. "You plan on needing a coat in case it rains in space when you attack that Death Star?"

"No, you pirate!" Lando laughingly exclaimed. "I might need the pockets for storing the odd hydrospanner."

"Here." Han tossed a green vest covered in pockets towards his friend. "That should do you nicely; lots of pockets."

Lando caught it and grimaced. "Rotten color, though."

"Beggars can't be choosers," Luke commented as he threw a camouflage cape over his shoulders and picked up two combat hats. "Here's one for you, Han."  
"I can't wear a hat," Han idly said as he caught Luke's offering in mid air. "It'll mess up my hair."

Luke smothered a laugh at Han's teasing, but Leia grabbed at the hat before Han could set it back down, and held it out to him, a serious expression on her face. "Wear it. We didn't rescue you from carbonite just to have you smash your head into a tree at the first opportunity."

Grudgingly, Han took the hat. "I'll look stupid."

"The stormtroopers won't care," Leia quipped.

Han obligingly tried on the hat, and it clashed with his new coat.

Lando doubled up with mirth. "You'll scare them to death in an outfit like that. You won't have to fire a single shot!"

Han grinned. "Say goodbye to the Death Star." He took the hat off and ran a hand through his hair, messing it even more.

Leia smiled. "That's how I like you; all messed up and oh, so cute!"

Luke grinned anew, but Wedge laughed out loud. "I never thought I'd see a whipped Han Solo."

"Yeah, you're so whipped that we can practically serve you as topping on desserts," Lando jokingly added.

"Hey, Solo, " Hobbie intervened while everybody else laughed. "I've been meaning to ask you about the way you bypassed the power couplings on the _Falcon._ We all tried it on our X-wings, but can't figure out how you did it. Doesn't it just create a feedback loop?"

Han propped the hat against his hip to regard Hobbie. "I pulled the mains, then connected the leads from the engine transformer straight to the…"

"Wait!" Hobbie exclaimed, laughing. "You lost me at 'pulling the mains.' Main what, wires or circuits?"

Wedge cut in to ask, "Or was it the main conduits?"

Han plopped the hat down on the nearest bench and pulled Hobbie and Wedge towards the door. "I'll show you meatheads what I did."

"Show and tell… this is my kind of battle prep!" Hobbie's voice carried through the door as it closed, sealing Luke in with just the Princess, Lando and Chewie.

"This I gotta see!" Lando ran to follow them through the door. "Come on, Chewie! You've got to translate."

Chewie gave a good natured growl, but headed after Lando.

That left Luke, who turned to follow them both, but Leia held him back. "Leia!" he laughed, teasingly tugging on his arm. "Come on!" But then Luke glanced at her anxious expression, and stopped. "What is it?"

Leia leaned in close. "Is it too much for me to ask you to keep an eye on Han?"

Instantly concerned, Luke's smile swooped into a frown. "Are you worried?"

"Do you think he's taking on too much too soon?"

"What; do you mean leading the strike team?" Leia nodded, and Luke grinned again. "Do you really want to deal with a Han who gets left behind?"

Leia thoughtfully considered such a possibility, then winced. "Maybe not."

Luke had to agree with her. "He would never let you hear the end of it."

"You're right; it'll be easier if he goes." Leia idly played with the hat Han had abandoned on the bench. "I'm just worried that he'll have a sight relapse at the worst possible moment, when we're surrounded by stormtroopers and laser fire and smoke, completely cut off from any back-up."

Luke had to grin. "Oh, you mean if things go the same as they always do?"

Leia smiled at his sarcasm. "Yeah."

Luke's laugh was less controlled this time; he had managed to forget for five minutes in a row what Master Yoda had said about his need to face Vader again. It was a relief to forget. Therefore, a thoroughly cheerful Luke predicted, "Han will be fine. You'll see… and so will he."

Leia rolled her eyes in exasperation. "That's what worries me."

The End


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Identity Crisis

Luke slowly exhaled in relief. He'd been fast enough when chopping through that trooper's speeder bike controls, and the fireball the bike had made as it hit a tree was impressive. There was no chance that the stormtrooper riding it had lived. The fact that Leia had used Imperial equipment to keep any possible warnings from getting back to their base was an extra relief. The Rebel presence on the Endor moon was still a secret, thanks to Luke and the Princess.

A stray worry about Leia's well-being crossed Luke's mind as he deactivated his lightsaber in order to rejoin Han and the strike team, but he already knew that no one was as capable or resourceful as the Princess. She would be fine, and probably beat him back to their temporary camp.

The signal from Han's locator beacon flashed brightly on the tiny grid readout that Lieutenant Madson had given him right before they'd left the Rebel fleet. After once again making certain he was going in the right direction, Luke began walking through the verdant undergrowth, setting a fast pace for himself. Ferns and leaves slapped his face, and the occasional tree root tripped him up, but other than that, Luke thoroughly enjoyed this forced march through the Endor greenery. There wasn't much opportunity for him to experience such an expanse of untouched forest, and he intended to enjoy every minute of it. Growing up on a desert planet had ensured that he would always appreciate the unpopular feeling of humidity on his skin, and even though it made him break out in an instant sweat, Luke wouldn't have changed the conditions for anything.

The thrill of walking through the forest soon lost its appeal, however, when Luke walked right into a spider web strung between two giant trees. The second he felt the gossamer threads encase his face, he automatically reached out through the Force to locate the spider that had made the web. After connecting with it, he did his best to calm it, putting a stop to its mad rush forward to enshroud the one who had destroyed its home in more clinging threads, saving it for later eating. Luke then considered that maybe the Endor forest wasn't much better than the wastes of Tatooine after all. Both places had hidden dangers if one wasn't careful.

Determined to remain more alert, Luke set off again. Yet despite his determination, his mind immediately slipped into another trance-like train of thought, now fixed on the way he'd so quickly utilized the Force to establish a connection to this latest creature bent on his demise. It hadn't been a purposeful action at all, but an instinctual one. Now he more closely examined that instinct. Master Yoda would have been delighted with Luke's quick reaction, but Luke himself felt a little uneasy about it, wondering if being able to call upon the Force so successfully was the good thing he'd always been told that it was, or if it was in truth a curse.

Sometimes, Luke wished with all his heart that he could just be normal. It would be a relief to spend his life dealing with nothing more threatening than the next target he was supposed to zap with his X-wing instead of worrying about his role as the guardian of all that was good in the galaxy. What would it be like, he mused, to just wake up, eat breakfast, then spend his day in the flight simulator with Wedge and Kamlyn as he attempted to get that elusive high score at virtual bogey destruction? To not have to concern himself with always controlling his emotions, with who his father was, with playing a pivotal role in the future leadership of the galaxy, with the fate of the Rebellion riding on his every move? It was often so exhausting that on some days, it was all Luke could do to force himself out of bed in the morning.

Being the last, best hope for a beleaguered people had lost its shine of importance long ago. Barely before he'd even gotten started with his Jedi training, his good intentions had faced the ultimate test, the truth about his parentage. He might as well have been carbonized with his friend Han Solo for all the good he did for the galaxy in the following months. Had he faced another test of his abilities during that time, he would have failed in a spectacular fashion and lost everything that was important to him, including his friends' unquestioning trust in him as a person.

Luke shook his head. Thinking this way did nothing but cause panic attacks. Soon, his sweat would turn into something much less simple if he didn't get control of himself. It would be just like the time he'd spent planning Han's rescue. The fears that had plagued him during that time had been too numerous to count, and if he wasn't careful, would rise again to take over his life. He could recall in detail his past terror at the idea of someone somehow discerning the horrible truth about his parentage. His worry would then inevitably turn into nausea, so sure was he that he would eventually have to defend himself when his secret was discovered. He might be barred from the Rebellion at that point, or jailed, or even worse. It hadn't taken much imagination to convince himself that eternal silence was his best option.

It astonished him that he was now considering ending that silence. But he knew that his father could feel his presence on this moon, that he was in turn jeopardizing the continued secrecy of the team and their mission here. As of right now, Vader had no proof that Luke had any particular motive for his presence, but Vader was also far from stupid. It was only a matter of time before he pieced together his son's designs to help take down the Death Star's supposedly infallible shield generator. The longer he stayed with the team, the more likely it was for them to be captured. It would be best for everyone involved if he turned himself in before something far worse came to pass.

Despite these thoughts, panic threatened to engulf him right there on the forest floor. Luke automatically used the calming techniques that Master Yoda had taught him, thus reminding himself of how this new train of thought had begun. Again he wished with all his heart that he was _normal_.

At the same time, he understood how selfish such a desire was. It might be nice if things had turned out differently, but instinctively knew that he would never be able to live with the devastating consequences if he tried to change so much as a small particle of his fate. All he had to do was think about his sister's pureness of heart to solidify his resolve. The idea that she might be captured and live the rest of her life as a prisoner of the Empire, to be tortured, or worse, was enough to chase away any residual feelings of doubt that he might harbor. The further threat that friends such as Han or Chewie or Wedge or Lando might join her in Imperial incarceration hardened his determination anew. He might be the son of his most ardent enemy, and carry the fate of the galaxy on his shoulders, but that didn't mean that he had to give in to doubts and despair.

Again Luke gave a vigorous shake of his head. He just couldn't predict how things would turn out one way or the other. If he surrendered, he would ensure the continued safety of his team and its mission on Endor. If he didn't surrender, and the team was captured as a result of Vader sensing them through his presence with them, and then the Rebellion eventually lost this battle as well as the war, he would never be able to live with himself. He just wasn't schooled enough in handling Force visions to know what would happen.

But it really didn't matter what he might or might not see of the immediate future. It all came down to what he was willing to do for his friends, for the Rebellion, and for the galaxy as a whole, whose fate once again rested on his shoulders.

Luke sighed one last sigh of regret for what could not be, then squared those shoulders in determination. If the galaxy was counting on him, so be it. He was more than ready for the responsibility. He would prevail because he had to. It was as simple as that.

More determined than ever, Luke reached out through the Force for the team members as he drew closer to their temporary camp. There they all were, crouching in the open, or hiding in the undergrowth. No matter where they were, he felt them all, as well as his faith in them and their abilities to do the impossible once more. More importantly, he sensed their returning faith in him, welcoming it for what it was, once again resolving not to let them down.

As he rounded that last forestry bend, the spark of determination he felt blossomed into a positive storm. Yoda would say that he had finally accepted his destiny, but to him it was much simpler than that. This was truly a case of doing, not just trying. From here on out, it was entirely up to him.

The End


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Dress Uniform II

By Linda Bindner

Leia did her absolute best to eat the food she had been given, but it was hard. The furry little creature she had followed to this tree village had thrust a piece of bark covered with food at her the moment they had arrived, and it had been a natural part of her training to eat every bite on it. Yet, it took every ounce of her willpower to swallow the boiled ants that were the last item set before her. In spite of training that insisted she remain polite, the fact that those tiny insects kept lodging in her teeth was driving her crazy!

Still, the creature who had helped her overcome an Imperial stormtrooper not two hours earlier was certainly of the friendliest sort. He had been nothing but a gentleman since she'd come to his home.

At least, she assumed this was his home. The hut she was currently sitting in came equipped with all the comforts of a permanent residence, including a fire pit, a bed made of what looked like furry blankets, and a long shelf on the wall full of trinkets, rough hewn bowls, and piles of some kind of material. Her mind was just turning to the next part of her training ('establish loose communication bonds') when the creature started to once again prod her in the arm.

Princess Leia understood that gesture as a less-than-subtle hint to produce more mission rations. Since she had eaten some of their food (if she could call it that) it was time for them to eat some of hers. The fact that these cute little Wookie-type creatures actually _liked_ Rebel issue ration squares amazed her on several levels.

Leia obligingly reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out another ration square. "You want some more food? Here you go." She handed the food to her host, who immediately went to stuff it in his mouth when her hand shot out to stop him. Smiling, she gently said, "No, I'll take the first bite. Remember? Like from before." Slowly, and with exaggerated motions, she took a small bite from the packed grains in her hand, then retrieved several more chunks from the pouch on her belt. "Some for you." She handed the piece back to the small creature. "And some for your friends." Still smiling in the least threatening way she knew how, she carefully handed the other pieces to the creatures forming a ring around her.

As one, they sniffed suspiciously at the food in their hands, tongues hesitantly flicking out to taste the offerings. When the food didn't immediately attack them, their gaze turned to their youngest comrade, Leia's new friend. Not hesitant at all by now, he joyfully stuffed his piece into his mouth and chewed enthusiastically. "Eche wa nub!" he said, unashamedly spraying crumbs as he spoke, arm gestures encouraging his elders to be less cautious.

A minute later, the skeptical elders were chewing with only slightly less enthusiasm than Leia's friend. "You like that?" she rhetorically asked, nodding her head and beaming. Since her first offering of food had been such a big hit, she reached in for several more squares. "Here, I have more." She slowly repeated her previous motions, and now the elders almost yanked the food out of her hands. It was a good thing she had thought to pull out a chunk for each of them, or she suspected that a Ration War would break out among the group.

"Wish I could communicate with my Alliance friends as easy as I do with you," the Princess ruefully said as she pried the locator beacon from her supply belt to give another forlorn look to its many pieces. She had been handed the intact beacon and its accompanying grid before they left for Endor, but suspected that it had broken during her fall from the speeder bike earlier that day. It was a pity that they couldn't eat the useless device.

Now she dragged the entire belt away from her waist. "This thing pinches when it's pulled tight enough. I hope you don't mind if I take it off."

Nope, the creatures didn't mind at all if she could judge by the way they fell to avidly examining every bit of her Rebel issue survival equipment that was still intact. She carefully unholstered her laser gun and set it aside to avoid any accidents, but let them examine the rest of her gear unmolested. They studied the chronometer, they tasted the wrapped bandages, burst into grunts at the vials of medicine, and gasped at the binocs when she showed them how to properly peer through the lenses. Suspecting they had never seen binocs before, she pushed the buttons to zoom in and out for each of her hosts. "Nice, huh?" Vigorously bobbing heads met her on all sides. Glad to produce another big hit, Leia let the largest creature keep the binocs as she pulled her camouflage cape over her head.

The creature must have dropped the binocs to the dirt floor, because Leia heard a definite thud, followed by a panicked, "Ego nu tak!"

Surprised at the outburst of noise, Leia jerked the cape from around her head, only to get the material tangled in the end of one of her coiled braids. She tugged furiously, but had to work the material loose with her fingers before she was finally able to free her head enough to see. The spear suddenly thrust in her face brought her up short, and Leia froze.

Hardly daring to breath, she simply stared at the creature wielding the spear, who did nothing but stare back. What had resembled a tiny and gentle Wookie a second before now refused to lower his scary looking spear a single centimeter.

But then Leia's new friend intervened. "Ichi wu ga," he calmly said. Leia couldn't understand what he was saying, but his hands gently pushing the spear aside was an unmistakable gesture of goodwill.

"It's all right," Leia reflexively said, though if she thought about it, she'd know that these creatures had about as much chance of understanding her words as she did of understanding theirs. _Just when I need Threepio and his six million forms of communication, he's nowhere to be found,_ she groused to herself, all the while wondering if she was ever going to see the golden droid again.

For that matter, was she going to see Luke again, to say nothing of Han? The icy despair hovering on the edge of her mind threatened to engulf her. She fought it, but the sudden cold of the air made it hard. Ignoring her worries, she instead tried to warm herself by briskly rubbing her arms in the cooling air.

Though she hadn't meant to do anything other than to distract herself, the gesture had a very strange effect. The armed miniature Wookie abruptly lowered his spear to stare at her in quizzical wonder. More to the point, it stared straight at her arms.

Following his gaze, Leia's eyes were drawn to her arms barely covered by her short sleeved tunic. "What? You haven't seen skin before? Or maybe it's my goosebumps." She rubbed her arms again. "It's all right. They'll go away in a minute. See." She held out her right arm for inspection. "They're fading already."

The spear wielder dropped his weapon entirely to study her closer. After a minute, it bravely poked at her hand. A second one poked at her arm. Then a third. Seeing an opportunity to make another connection with these creatures, Leia stroked a finger down her arm, then slowly guided one of the creature's fingers down her arm, too. She tried to look pleased. "See. It's just an arm. It won't hurt you."

In sudden comprehension, Leia's new friend picked up her hat from the floor beside the door and held it out to her. "Incomu?"

Was he referring to how she'd taken her hat off earlier, just like the cloak? Smiling, Leia took the hat, though admitted to herself that he could also be using it to symbolize how her head was now as bare as her arms. She didn't know what to do next, so just sat there, smiling and holding the hat. The creature pantomimed putting the hat on his head. Imitating him, she put the real hat on her own head. Then he acted like he was taking his fake hat off again, so she mirrored that as well.

He put his invisible hat on his head. She put hers on her own head. He took his off again. So did she. Then he pointed at her crumpled cloak, and pretended to pull it over his head. Leia did the same. He pointed at his arm, then pulled the invisible cloak off again. She pointed at hers, then pulled the cloak off for a second time. He tugged on the fur growing on his arm. At that, Leia was stumped. She couldn't imitate pulling fur on her arm when fur didn't naturally grow anywhere on her. Not knowing what else to do, she stroked a finger down her arm, looked sad, and shook her head.

But the tiny Wookie creature tugged on his fur again, then pointed at her braided hair. "Oh," Leia gushed in understanding. She pulled away the pins from one braid until her long hair fell in graceful swirls around her head. "Fur."

The creature's head tilted to the side, curiosity sparking in his eyes. It was the same look that he had given her in the forest when she had first removed her hat. Though she couldn't take off her hair and hold it out for his inspection, she was able to lift the ends up closer to him. "See? It's my hair. It won't hurt you, either."

The next thing she knew, many furred and stubby fingers were gently brushing through her hair as they all oohed and aahed together. Leia obligingly released her second braid so that it also hung down her back in a brown wave. There were more oohs and aahs.

Several free strands of hair brushed her bare arm, feeling warm on her skin. The sudden warmth reminded her of the growing cold, and she gave an involuntary shiver.

As one, the creatures shivered back.

So Leia shivered again.

The creatures shivered back.

Could she possibly communicate a simple idea by shivering? _Well, this isn't in the protocol manual_.

Willing to try anything, she put her cloak back on, then fanned her face as if she were hot, then took it off again, and rubbed her arms, shivering. "Cold."

The way the tiny creatures did the same thing so enthusiastically was almost comical. "Cooooold'."

Leia tugged at the fur on her friend's arm, nodded her head, stroked her own bare arm, shook her head no this time, then shivered and repeated, "Cold."

Intense curiosity met her on all sides. The creatures tilted their heads. They stared at her hair and her bare arms. They stared at their own furred arms. Then they pointed at her naked arms and pretended to shiver, a gesture that led them to confer with each other in grunts and hacking sounds. Then her young friend trotted cheerfully to the shelf with the piled material and happily presented her with a bundle of clothes.

"Ur," said her friend, and purred. For added benefit, he tugged on his arm fur, then stroked her bare arm, then pointed towards the bundle of clothes. "Ur," he proudly repeated.

Was he saying 'fur?'

Leia held up the bundle so that it unfolded into a human dress over a long sleeved white shirt. Clearly she wasn't the first human these creatures had encountered. Trying not to think about the whereabouts of the owner of this dress, she simply repeated, "Fur." She smiled and nodded as if to thank them.

The creatures all jabbered at each other in pleased tones, nodding their heads, happy to have helped her.

Leia didn't dare to refuse the offering of their rendition of fur, not if she ultimately needed their help to find and return to the strike team. So she should change clothes. But the creatures didn't act like they planned to leave her alone to change clothes any time soon. Was she expected to change clothes right in front of them? _Good thing I'm not modest._

As a compromise to actually changing her clothes, she donned the dress over the Alliance clothing she already wore. It was fortunate that her short sleeved tunic was as low cut as the dress. She had expected the white shirt and dress to feel rough on her bare skin, like bark, but both were soft and admittedly warm. Once the dress was in place, she removed the boots she was wearing, then her pants, which were too bulky under the dress. Shoes more suited to quietly traversing the forests of Endor completed her transformation. The long sleeves felt wonderfully warm in the cooling air. She smiled broadly, and nodded. "Thank you."

Their pleased looks multiplied. They might not understand what she said, but they had no trouble understanding her obvious pleasure. She had successfully formed a bond with them without really saying a word. To celebrate, Leia pulled out more rations that she had been saving for a later emergency and handed the treats around. They were as excited about getting more unexpected food as they had been about the clothes.

"Good," Leia intoned, still exaggerating, rubbing her arms and smiling. They smiled back. It was communication at its most basic, but it was still communication.

That was when Leia grew aware of the commotion that had been filtering into the hut from outside for quite some time. It had grown decidedly darker as they spoke, but none of them had noticed that, either. Now they headed towards the shadowy entrance of the hut to see what was going on.

Several minutes later, Leia was begging for the release of her Alliance friends while knowing without a doubt that she had been supplanted as the resident royal by a golden droid on a throne of sticks who was over six million times better at communicating than she would ever be.

It was fortunate, then, that instead of the six million forms of communication that Threepio needed, Luke only needed one.

The End


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Holding Leia

The noise caused by the Ewoks welcoming the Rebels to the tribe was as big and loud as they were small and furry. But on the darkened walkway where Luke and Leia had just spoken in quiet tones, the Ewok's noise had already faded into the endless dark of the Endor night. Luke had just left, swallowed up by that darkness. Han had then joined Leia, but for an exchange of anguished words rather than the soft tones from earlier. Han had attempted to leave, too, but had paused, as if realizing how his jealousy was leading him into an argument with Leia that he didn't want. His apologetic mumble sounded low and gentle among the leaves, like the evening breeze, but was no less sincere for all it's gentleness. "I'm sorry."

Leia was fairly certain that she had never heard an apology issue from Han Solo before in her life. The genuine gesture moved her to adopt a much more forgiving attitude. Any anger she'd felt at his words disappeared, leaving only the ache of Luke's recent news. A powerful yearning for someone in the Rebellion to take care of her for once instead of her always being the strong one welled up within her. However, what she _needed_ right now was a much simpler thing. "Hold me."

Han couldn't deny her tiny form any more than he could deny himself a breath of air. The next thing he knew, Leia herself filled his arms, her smell filling his senses just as effortlessly. Without thinking, he wrapped his own arms around her and held on tight. It wasn't in his nature to offer empty platitudes, and instead, just tightened his hold on her and patted her back.

Leia shivered, but said nothing of what was bothering her. Han knew better than to ask. Someone as private as the Princess would tell him what was on her mind when she was ready, and not a moment before. The independent man that Han was understood and respected a need such as that. So he simply remained standing on the rough catwalk and held her, glad that he was able to do this much.

Her shivering continued until Han finally realized that she was crying. Astonished, he drew back a little so he could see her face. "You never cry, Your Worship! What is this?"

Burying her face in his shoulder again, Leia grimaced under her tears. "You just don't want me… messing up… your strike team," she brokenly hiccupped.

A bark of laughter burst out of Han despite the dark description she'd given to his character. "I just don't want you crying all over my clothes; this is the only shirt I've got with me."

Leia softly laughed and cried at the same time.

A far more gentle admonition wove through the night. "Tell me, Leia. Please."

She couldn't tell him precisely what was wrong, but she also refused to turn away when Han was so purposely opening himself to her in a move that was as rare as it was affectionate. "I'm afraid."

Again came his gentle chuckle of disbelief. "Afraid? You aren't afraid of anything."

Leia wanted to laugh sarcastically at what she considered a ludicrous statement, but couldn't find the energy. "Luke… left."

"Yeah, I saw him go. But he's gone off on his own before. Why does it worry you this time?"

"He's…" Leia drew in a deep breath, trying to calm her heaving emotions. "He's going to face… Vader."

Han frowned, perplexed. "Vader? But he isn't even here!"

Leia's nod ruffled his black vest. "He is; Luke said he can feel him."

Han's eyes widened slightly at this alarming statement. "If he can feel Vader, does that mean Vader can feel-?"

Another nod cut him off.

This entire mission depended on the continued secrecy of the team's presence on Endor. To find out that Luke was giving them away to their greatest enemy by simply existing did not bode well at all for their eventual success.

But Han finally understood the awful truth. "He surrendered, didn't he? For us."

Miserable, Leia gave a third nod. "So he can face Vader again."

Han's stomach fell to his toes even while he was filled with admiration. "The kid's got guts, I'll give him that."

Leia shivered once more. "I'm worried we'll never see him again."

Han suspected this wasn't the entire truth, but it was what she was willing to tell him. For Leia to divulge even this much illustrated the high level of her trust in him. "Sure we will. He handled Jabba after all, and he's a Jedi. He'll be fine."

Leia choked. "Against _Vader_?"

Han tried not to sound full of empty bravado. "I've heard about Luke's skills, and you've even seen them. You know what he can do."

"I know what Vader can do, too."

Han didn't have an argument for that, so simply repeated, "He'll be fine."

Leia really did smile this time. "Say that often enough, and maybe you'll start to believe it yourself."

"Maybe." Grimly, Han added, "I'll believe it if you will."

Leia wanted to believe in Luke's longevity as much as Han did. She was even willing to help delude them both in order to to do it. "It's a deal."

"Then let's go back before Chewie sends out Threepio to look for us," Han suggested as Leia sniffed one last time. He flung one arm around Leia's shoulders and led them back in the direction of the Ewok's hut. "Being hounded by a golden god is more than I can stand."

Leia's throaty laugh dissolved in one last hiccup. "I promise not to tell Threepio that you called him a god."

"Hey, I'm just going with what the little guys are calling him."

"Speaking of the Ewoks, what do you think of them, Han?"

"Little help is better than no help at all."

Leia gave him a one armed hug. "We can use all the help we can get."

Han's mischievous smile pulled her in with its affection, and he kissed the top of her head as they walked. "They kind of look like little Wookies, but don't tell Chewie I said that."

They were so close to the collection of huts now that the noise of the Ewoks welcoming the Rebels into their tribe spilled out to them on the dark walkway. Grinning, Leia ducked to precede him into the Ewok hut to rejoin the celebration. "Your secret is safe with me, Solo."

"Your Worship, I'm forever in your debt."

The End


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Surrender vs. Foresight

Luke's Surrender:

 _I hope this is the right thing to do._

 _It has to be the right thing. If I don't give myself up, then I'll become a beacon to Vader, saying 'Here's the Rebel scum; come get them!' I can't do that to the team. If I did, and Han ever found out, and then found out that I knew about it, he would never forgive me. I would never forgive myself. So this_ _has_ _to be the right thing._

 _Wow, there are a lot of trees around here. It's a wonder that those Ewok creatures don't ever get lost. Then again, I suppose if I lived on Endor all my life, I'd be good at finding my way in all these trees, too._

 _Forget about not getting lost; I'd be too busy looking at all this greenery to bother with ever knowing my location._

 _(Sigh.) It's too bad I'm going to meet Vader and the Emperor; I'd like to spend some more time seeing all these trees in the daylight before die. I_ _do_ _have a good chance of dying, after all._

 _Well, that's all right. I'm not afraid to die. At least the new Death Star isn't orbiting a desert planet full of sand. I saw enough sand on Tatooine to fill ten lifetimes. If I die, I wouldn't mind being buried on Endor. I could get used to all this greenery._

The Emperor's Foresight: 

_(_ evil maniacal laughter _) Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen._

Luke's Surrender:

 _The bunker for the shield generator has to be in this general direction. Look at all those lights! It's like the Empire's scared of the dark. With all those lights, they can't miss seeing something coming, no matter what time it is._

 _Which means that they can't possibly miss me. Good thing I'm surrendering; I would be captured anyway._

 _Or maybe I wouldn't be captured. I could walk right up and_ _pretend_ _to surrender, and then once they took me captive, I could let loose and use the Force to really do some damage. I bet I can do a lot of damage if I just set my mind to it. One Jedi versus…. oh, about two hundred stormtroopers? I could probably take out… let's say, about fifty troopers before they figured out that I'm only one person. But then I'd be in trouble. Then I'd get captured for sure._

 _But even if I get captured, at least I wouldn't be endangering the team and the mission anymore. Of course, Leia might get upset when she hears about it. And Han wouldn't like it very much._

 _And you can bet that I'd be used against the Rebellion after that. The Emperor would never let me just rot in one of his prison cells for long. He'd turn me to the Dark Side first chance he got, and then unleash me on all my Rebel friends._

 _Nope, surrendering is my best option._

The Emperor's Foresight:

(evil maniacal laughter) _Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen._

Luke's Surrender:

 _Besides, I'm losing sight of what I'm really trying to do, which is turn Father back to the Good Side. He's my focus, not how much damage I can do before I get captured. I know there's still good in him. I've felt it._

 _At least, I think I've felt it._

 _There_ _has_ _to be good in him. He didn't kill me when he had the chance in Cloud City. I wished he did at the time, but he didn't. That says a lot when you consider that he's a Sith Lord. He won't turn me over to his Emperor now. He wants to keep me for himself so that we can rule the galaxy together._

 _Like I really_ _want_ _to rule the galaxy! What would I do with a galaxy, anyway? Blow it up one planet at a time? A lot of good that would do. Look what it did to Leia. She actually_ _saw_ _her home planet get blown up, and all it really did was make her fight the Empire that much harder._

 _Yet, she had to be rescued first in order to do it._

 _Which brings me right back to where I started with the whole 'getting captured' thing._

 _I can't get captured. I'd have Darth Vader to contend with if I get captured, not to mention the Emperor. I'll have to contend with them if I surrender, of course, but at least this way, it's on my terms. But if I get captured instead of surrendering, you can bet that the Rebellion will try to rescue me. A lot of Rebels will lose their lives doing it, too. I couldn't stand how guilty I'd feel if that happened. Now I know how Han felt when I showed up at Jabba's Palace to rescue him. I didn't think of that._

 _Surrender is definitely my best option. Father didn't kill me before, and he'll not turn me over to the Emperor now._

 _Sure, Luke. Say that to yourself often enough, and you might even start to believe it._

The Emperor's Foresight:

(evil maniacal laughter) _Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen._

Luke's Surrender

 _I can feel Vader. If I can feel him, that means he knows I'm coming and is waiting for me._

 _Maybe I should…_

That was when Luke practically tripped over an Imperial speeder bike left hidden behind a gigantic fern. He had just untangled his foot from the bike's front guidance rifle when a trooper spotted him.

"Hey you! Stop right there!" Several armoured stormtroopers rushed to surround Luke the moment he straightened. "Freeze!'

Luke froze. "I'm a Rebel, and I surrender," he immediately said, raising his hands above his head, his lightsaber clutched in his gloved fist.

"What is this, some kind of joke?" barked a nervous trooper, getting right up into Luke's face. "Rebels never surrender! They'd die first."

"I'm not just any Rebel," Luke calmly replied.

The nervous trooper grabbed at Luke's upraised arms, yanking them down in order to rip the lightsaber from his grasp. Luke let him, but kept on eye on where his lightsaber was at any given time in case he suddenly needed to call it back.

However, the trooper's next move ended any idea of fighting the Imperials with his lightsaber. The trooper roughly pulled Luke's hands together so that he could shackle them as tightly as possible. "Try getting out of that, Rebel scum!" The stormtrooper then grabbed one of his arms, pulling hard enough to yank him off his feet, but Luke refused to move.

 _Why are we always called 'Rebel scum?'_ thought Luke as the trooper yanked on him a second time.

Luke refused to move again.

The ugly helmet with the familiar intimidating frown whipped to face him. "Move, you scum, or I'll-"

"There's no need for violence," Luke placidly insisted. "I said that I surrender, and I do. That doesn't mean that I'll let you mistreat me in any way you see fit."

"Any way I see fit, huh?" The trooper hefted his heavy Imperial rifle up in obvious threat. "What are you gonna do about it, _Rebel?"_

"This." Luke lifted his bound hands to use the Force to fling the trooper twenty feet away from him. The trooper landed hard on the ground, his white armour making a great clanking sound that no one could possibly miss even in all those trees. As the downed stormtrooper staggered to his feet, Luke calmly eyed the surrounding soldiers. "Anybody else?"

As one, the troopers lowered their rifles to simply stare at Luke with the same respect they habitually showed Lord Vader.

Luke serenely turned forward once more. "Then let's go; we have a Dark Lord to see."

As one, the twenty troopers led Luke toward a waiting ATAT that someone had had the foresight to call. Once there, they would inform their commanding officer that they had a Rebel prisoner. But as they went, each one of them wondered exactly which one of them was the prisoner, and which one, the captive?

The Emperor's Foresight:

(evil maniacal laughter) _Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen._

The End


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Thoughts of a Dark Lord

 _My son is either very brave, or very foolish._

The thought swirled in Darth Vader's mind to mix with the alarming fact that Luke was also very confident, much more so than during the time they'd met in Cloud City. That strange sense of confidence had pervaded his and Luke's every moment together since the boy had appeared not long after his surrender.

 _He's not a boy,_ was Vader's next thought. _Not any longer._ It was a surprise to him. He'd thought of Luke as an untrained boy for so long that he'd consistently downplayed the threat posed by him. According to his previous calculations, Luke should now be ripe for being turned. He would become an apprentice to the Emperor, his untried skills a welcome addition to the Dark Side.

But an untrained boy was not who Vader met on the shield generator's landing platform. A strong sense of confidence exuded from this stranger wearing his son's face. He had even remained calm when Vader had ignited his lightsaber directly behind his back. This boy-turned-man had clearly mastered his fear. Yet to be seen was if he had mastered the Force in equal measure.

While on the journey to the Emperor in the Death Star's Throne Room, Luke's confidence had systematically assaulted the Dark Lord until he could no longer afford to ignore the obvious: Luke was now someone to be reckoned with. He was more than willing to confront his destiny, not because he was eager to fight it, but because he was no longer afraid of it. His son's mastery of his emotions was evident in the calm manner that continued to seep from his every pore even when the Emperor sneered that the Rebellion's secret assault was not so secret any longer. Luke's response was not to grow horrified, or even surprised, but to accuse the Emperor of overconfidence. No one ever accused the Emperor of anything, least of all a weakness.

Vader wondered why his Master was taking such talk so calmly. Had this been anybody else, the Emperor would have administered a Force choke hold at the very least by now. Vader had never known him to be a patient man, and he had grown less patient in the recent years. His response was to claim that since he was defenceless, Luke should immediately strike him down. However, Vader knew that the Emperor's claim was just an act. Anyone with the Emperor's Force abilities was never defenceless.

It didn't matter in the end; Luke refused to heed the Emperor's claim, and therefore, the taunting continued. With each taunt, it became more and more clear to Vader what the Emperor was doing; he was slowly turning Luke, probably even without Luke's knowledge. This son of his was really no match for the Emperor, in spite of his level of confidence. It hadn't been bravado when Vader had said that the Emperor was Luke's master now. The Emperor was _always_ the master.

But Luke's calm in the face of those taunts was substantial; he had lasted much longer than Vader had anticipated. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the Emperor's claims to be defenceless that caused the first crack in that calm, but the threat to his Rebel friends. The fact that he could see the space battle from the Throne Room window played a much larger role in eroding Luke's inborn sense of peace. Watching, Vader realized that there was no way the Emperor could tell which side was winning, but also knew that it didn't matter. What mattered was that the Rebellion _could_ be losing, Luke's closest friends _could_ be dying, and he wasn't doing anything to stop it. Holding this meeting in the Throne Room where Luke could witness every battle maneuver and death flash was a brilliant form of manipulation on the Emperor's part. More brash himself, Vader would do well to remember this type of subtlety for future reference.

Yet, something was still niggling at the back of Vader's mind, and had been irrationally itching all during this Throne Room encounter with Luke. The Emperor claimed that everything was transpiring as he had foreseen… but was that really so? Vader had also had a Force vision of this meeting, and had it some time ago.

He had seen someone falling, surrounded by wispy blue light. He'd assumed that it was the residual effects of the Emperor's Force Lightning, and for his Master to resort to using the lightning meant that he had to kill someone for some reason, probably Luke. But Vader didn't want to assume anything, especially with the interpretation of a vision. He'd seen Luke in hiding, but from what or whom, he didn't know. He had seen the Emperor laughing maniacally, but that was nothing new. He had seen Luke fighting a lightsaber duel, presumable with him. He had seen Luke standing beside the Emperor, clothed in black, smiling such an evil smile that it oddly twisted his stomach. And where was he in this scenario?

But Vader had never been particularly good at interpreting his Force visions. He didn't pretend to himself that he was. Yet he noticed that the Emperor had no trouble in claiming that everything he'd seen was unavoidable, especially for Luke. But Vader knew his Master well enough by now to know that this confidence on his part simply encouraged the outcome that he desired, not that it really was an unavoidable outcome. He had used the same tactic himself, most recently on Luke at Cloud City. It was a particularly effective strategy, and typically worked, too. The fact that it didn't seem to be working now did not bode well for his Master. However, Vader knew better than to say anything about these thoughts.

One thing Vader did know: he had to confront his son in a lightsaber duel once again, and his son was much more formidable competition than he had expected him to be. Sadly enough, despite the inevitability that the Emperor claimed about this contest, he wasn't at all sure how it would end. The only thing he was certain about was that it _would_ end.

One way or another.

The End


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17: In the Throne Room

 _Focus!_ Luke repeated to himself for the millionth time since his encounter with Darth Vader and the Emperor had begun. _I must stay calm. I must control my emotions, especially my fear. I must not be goaded into a hasty reaction. Above all, I must not turn to the Dark Side!_ The mantras that Master Yoda had taught him bounced crazily in his mind to mix with the Emperor's taunts.

The Emperor's latest tactic was to allow Luke to witness the space battle between the Rebel Alliance and Imperial Forces. His use of offering Luke his lightsaber to goad the Jedi into an act of revenge for that space battle was cleverly done. Luke felt his control slip due to the double barrage, then begin to slide down towards chaos. He turned to behold his weapon, then reasserted emotional control in time to whip back around toward the Throne Room window. But now he could again witness the space battle where his friends were dying. He felt his control slip again, and the emotional slide began anew.

Back and forth, back and forth. Luke's emotions were like Alderaan now; all over the place. He tried once again to assert emotional control, but his grip on his emotions was wearing thin. How long was he expected to keep this up? He'd lately thought he showed excellent emotional control, but this… He was going to lose. It was only a matter of time.

And the Emperor had all the time in the galaxy. The Empire would simply blow the Rebel Alliance to oblivion bit by bit while Luke dithered with his emotional control.

One more taunt. One more lightsaber goad. One more wicked smile from the Emperor.

"I am unarmed," came the Emperor's latest comment. "Strike me down with all of your hate, and-"

And Luke wasn't listening anymore. It struck him as highly ludicrous for the Emperor to claim that he was unarmed. _Of course_ he was armed. No Force user of the Emperor's abilities was ever unarmed, even if he wasn't currently armed with a visible weapon. Luke realized that.

Luke also realized that another Death Star blast had taken out another Rebel cruiser. He _felt_ the beings inside the cruiser scream right before they winked out of existence. He'd had friends on that cruiser, and on the cruiser that had disappeared before that. He'd felt them all scream. It was only a matter of time before he felt Leia scream. And Han. And Lando.

 _I must stay calm. I must not be goaded. Above all, I must_ _not_ _give in._

It was amazing how fast Luke gave in. One minute, he was staring out the window, the next he was attacking the Emperor with his lightsaber in hand. He was fast.

But Vader was faster.

Vader's red lightsaber met his green lightsaber six inches above the throne where the Emperor sat. The subject of that attack gleefully laughed while Vader's red blade valiantly attempted to overpower its green counterpart. Sparks flew from the energy blades, and the smell of burnt ozone filled the air.

Luke looked up from the cackling Emperor to face his father over the crackling of the two lightsabers. He instantly felt a sense of calm rush through his mind. _This_ was what he was meant to do. The Emperor and all his taunts and goads were just distractions from his true destiny.

He had to face Vader, just as Master Yoda had said.

So Luke faced Vader, calmly, rationally, confidently. The Force flowed through him. It filled him up. In seconds, it was his everything.

As it was Vader's everything... except for one little spark of emotional conflict between good and evil, the Light and the Dark that Luke didn't miss. The spark flickered, burned, flickered again, and was gone. But Luke had felt it, as he'd felt it before now. He would feel it again. More importantly, he knew what it meant.

No matter what the Emperor had commanded his apprentice to do, Vader would not kill his son.

Luke would not kill his father, though the Emperor wanted him to kill Vader and take his place as an apprentice to the Dark Side.

But again, Luke wasn't paying attention, at least, not to the Emperor. Instead, he reached out and once more felt that spark of conflict in Vader. This time, the spark was much bigger, much stronger. How could the Emperor not sense that? Conversely, Luke felt no internal conflict. He and Vader fought as had been intended by the Force since the Force began.

Neither gained the upper hand. Neither gained control. They were well matched, this father and son. Equals.

Several moments later, Luke reached the bold decision to shut off his lightsaber and declare his intent to fight his father no longer. Vader pressed his advantage of facing a deactivated saber, as Luke had expected he would, and hadn't taken his finger off his lightsaber's power switch. The fight resumed as quickly as it had halted.

 _Focus!_ Luke commanded himself. It was an admonition that he didn't really need. He was _in the moment_ , so much a part of the Force that he could now _hear_ Vader's conflicting emotions as well as feel them. At least, he could hear evidence of that conflict between the Emperor's continued taunts. Luke wished that the Emperor would just shut up, as he was distracting Luke from his real goal, like a bug was distracting as it buzzed relentlessly around your head. The Emperor was attracted to the darkness that Luke carried within him just as a bug was attracted to sweat. But where the Emperor thought the darkness within Luke was the Jedi's focus, Luke concentrated instead on his Father's conflicting emotions, even as Vader denied those emotions. Luke didn't know who Vader was trying to convince. He had to know that Luke felt his internal conflict. What was increasingly puzzling was why the Emperor did not.

Maybe Luke was sensing a family connection that the Emperor naturally didn't share. Yoda hadn't said anything about such a connection, but maybe he wasn't aware of it, either. As far as Luke knew, Yoda didn't have any family members who were also Force sensitive. Neither did Obi-Wan.

Clearly, neither did the Emperor. If he was aware of this apparent Skywalker family connection, he wouldn't be so confident that he already knew how this conflict was going to end. He certainly wouldn't have been audacious enough to declare that Luke as well as Darth Vader now belonged to _him._ In spite of what the Emperor claimed, Luke had no intention of tapping into that well of darkness residing inside him. Until he figured out how best to take advantage of his father's wavering emotions, Luke decided to hide.

And then Vader took up the taunting that the Emperor had begun. Surprisingly enough, the goading was much more successful this time. Luke felt Vader's deep and powerful voice resonate within him in personal ways that the Emperor's never had. All Vader had to do was mention Luke's abiding connection to his friends, and the next thing Luke knew, he was basically telling Vader everything about his sister.

Then Darth Vader said the one thing that was too much for Luke to endure. "If you won't turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps she will."

"No!" Luke leapt out of the alcove he was hiding in to attack Vader with a dark ferocity that he didn't know he possessed. The idea that his sweet sister could be perverted into joining with the Emperor was hideous.

Luke pressed his attack as soon as he made it, barely aware of what he was doing. His lightsaber slashed through the air in green blurs of motion. Sparks flew and the energy blades sizzled. He could allow himself to fight Darth Vader, but there was no way that he was going to let Leia do the same. She was completely untrained, and would therefore be easy prey for the megalomaniacal Emperor and his dark apprentice. The only way that Vader and his evil master would get their hands on Leia was if he was dead and couldn't stop it, and Luke would kill his father before he let that happen.

Blows rained down on Vader, who had to half lie on the ground in order to defend himself, Luke's saber pounding a relentless shower of sparks over him. With one mighty final swing, Luke cut through his father's hand at the wrist, completely severing it. Both Vader's lightsaber and the hand wielding it tumbled away.

His own panting filled Luke's ears, accompanied by the wheezing hiss that punctuated his father's labored breathing. A moment went by where the ringing in Luke's ears even covered up the Emperor's mad laughter at this unexpected turn of events. Once it finally did infiltrate Luke's consciousness, it wasn't to make the Jedi glorify in the darkness that surged through his veins, but to wake the horror buried within Luke that he had somehow allowed himself to be goaded into doing what he swore he would never do. He truly was one step from killing his own father, from _becoming_ his own father.

This wasn't what he wanted. The Emperor was behind him, laughing crazily again, and his father was before him, making signs of surrender to ward off his own possible death. Strangely enough, Luke could no longer sense the conflict within Vader. He didn't know if that was because the conflict between Light and Dark no longer existed within his father, or because he himself had travelled down the Dark path so far that he couldn't feel it anymore. Perhaps it really was as Yoda had always said it was: _once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny._

Luke gazed unblinkingly at his gloved mechanical hand, utterly fascinated, utterly horrified. He had chosen to start down the Dark path. According to Yoda, he would now be on it forever.

He refused to accept that.

In a move that wove father and son together as tightly as steel, Luke straightened to at last become the Jedi he was meant to be. He deactivated, then tossed away his lightsaber. "I am a Jedi, like my father before me," he declared, his confidence in this maneuver growing by the second. It just felt _right_.

At first, the Emperor was simply annoyed at Luke's claim, his displeasure apparent in his bewildered frown. This was obviously not the way he had expected a contest with Luke's Dark Side to go. However, his confusion quickly turned into fury.

The twisted expression on the Emperor's face warned Luke a second before it happened that the Emperor did not like it when people openly defied him.

Blue energy flew from the Emperor's fingertips to viciously attack this newest Jedi just as Luke fell backwards. Pain like he'd never before experienced crashed into him from all sides. He couldn't focus against it. He couldn't recall Master Yoda's teachings. He couldn't even think. The worst part was that he had no defense against those flashes of blue streaks because he had voluntarily thrown it away. That decision may have made him a Jedi, but he would be a short lived Jedi unless he did something about it immediately.

But he still couldn't think. All he could do was writhe in agony. Fire consumed him from the inside out. He couldn't do anything except beg.

But once again his plea didn't take any form that the Emperor might have predicted. Luke didn't even take note of his torturer. Instead, he begged with that spark in Vader that he had felt before. "Father, please, help me!"

Vader clearly heard Luke, but still stood beside his Master to watch as the torture continued. His head swivelled several times between his Master and his son. Luke cried out in wordless pleas several more times. The Emperor declared that Luke's death was imminent, and it certainly looked imminent. Luke was now so consumed by the blue Darkness of the Force that he glowed.

But then between one heartbeat and the next, Vader changed; the conflict still raging within him took on a life of its own. Despite the blue flashes of energy, Luke felt it the second it happened. The conflict narrowed down into a single truth that the Emperor had never successfully extinguished; Vader was still Anakin Skywalker. In the next instant, Vader once again became Anakin in a way he hadn't been for over twenty years.

That was when Luke's own conflict resolved itself in a blink of time; he had found his father at last.

There was no way that the Emperor could possibly miss such a strong Force sensation. He would turn on his apprentice next.

But that wasn't what happened. He continued to focus on Luke, and according to his expression, to take ugly pleasure in the torture. Luke could sense that killing the younger Skywalker had became Emperor Palpatine's reason for existing.

And that was when the Emperor made his most critical mistake. Had he been paying attention, he would never have missed it, for the Force practically screamed of it; he was killing the son of his trusted apprentice while that apprentice watched.

Only he wasn't the Emperor's apprentice any longer. He wasn't anything… except a father.

Suddenly the fire didn't hurt Luke, and didn't burn his insides. In the instant before Vader lifted his former Master into the air, taking the blue streaks from his son and onto himself, Luke finally fully understood everything in one wild burst of the Force.

He knew that it was his destiny to face Vader, and by doing that, restore balance to the Force. What neither he nor Obi-Wan nor Yoda had ever considered was that his father had also been destined to balance the Force. Palpatine's rise to power was also something no one had predicted, or that he would carry on the tradition of the Sith and become Darth Sidious, or that he would name himself Emperor. Once Anakin Skywalker joined his Emperor in Darkness, the Force was perpetually out of balance, and had stayed that way for years.

Until Leia came along. It was part accident, and partly no accident at all that Leia (Skywalker) Organa was captured by Darth Vader above Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine. Why Tatooine? It wasn't any more a center for the Force than any other planet, though it did have one thing that no other did; Obi-Wan Kenobi. All the players in this Force drama were in the same place at the same time.

One might say that the Force's desire to gain balance reasserted itself that day. Leia had first dibs at saving her father from the Dark Side, but the Dark Side was too entrenched in Vader for the Light in Leia to have any effect. He forced her to watch the Empire blow up her home planet instead.

Enter Luke, another Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, another Master of the Force and wielder of the Light. The potential for balance to reassert itself was now present in The Force, but the opportunity passed without anyone taking advantage of it. Ben Kenobi died in the following conflict, taking the possibility of balance with him. Yet, he did so in order to add to the natural power of Light that resided in Luke. The contest for future balance was more equal than it appeared.

Then Luke destroyed the Empire's newest destructive toy, almost destroying Vader in the process. Vader then tried to seduce his son into joining him in Darkness, but only managed to sever his hand instead. There was still an imbalance in the Force, though the way that the Skywalker twins had come together boded well for finding balance at long last.

Now here, in the second Death Star's Throne Room, surrounded by the Dark Side and evil deeds and wicked people, at last Luke understood. His destiny wasn't to join the Emperor, to face Darth Vader, or even to save his father. It was to restore balance to the Force, and then to _keep_ that balance. To do that, he had to save his father from himself. But it looked like his father had beaten him to it.

The lightning pain in Luke steadily subsided until it disappeared altogether when Vader lifted the Emperor high above his head prior to throwing him down the Death Star's reactor shaft. The following explosion tilted the Force in a way that it hadn't leaned in years. Light and Dark once again sang in harmony, resonating with the power shared by the two Sides, power that flowed through Luke to heal him even as it sucked the power from Vader in order to do it. Give and take, life and death, Light and Dark; the perfect balance.

The End


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Caught In the Middle

"Hey kid, what's up?"

Han Solo's innocuous question fell flat as a disheartened Luke flopped onto the bench seat near the dejarik board on _The Millennium Falcon_. The despondent aura that had clung to Luke ever since Endor was the exact opposite of Han's cheerful demeanor.

At Luke's continued agonized silence, Han glanced up from his struggle to install two new relays on the _Falcon's_ control board. "Kid?"

In spite of Han's echoing question, Luke sat unmoving, at last burying his head in his arms. He was clearly in the throes of a deep depression, looking like a lost bundle of melted space sludge.

Han instinctively knew that a quick offense was the best defense against a bout of the blues such as Luke's. "Might as well tell me right now what's eating you. If you don't, Chewie will just rip your arms out of their sockets to get you to tell him what it is, then he'll tell me, and he's sure to get the details all wrong. So, what's got you all riled up… or down?"

Unfazed by Han's comment, Luke lifted his head a micron to balefully eye his friend. "Han, you've been threatening to turn Chewie loose on me ever since I met you."

Han scowled. "I'm gonna turn Threepio loose on you if you don't 'fess up."

"I'm not afraid of Threepio."

Han's scowl deepened, "You know, kid, one thing that being married to your sister has taught me, it's how to know when a Skywalker is changing the subject on purpose."

"I'm not changing the subject," Luke protested.

"Well, whatever you're doing, it's annoying."

Luke's lips curled briefly in a semblance of a smile. "It's what I'm here for, to be the annoying little brother."

Han's bark of laughter rang through the _Falcon's_ empty corridors. "How do you know you're not the annoying older brother?"

But Luke didn't join in Han's laughter. "The fact that I don't know who's older is what's bothering me."

Han frowned. "Leia doesn't know, and it doesn't bother her. I didn't think it bothered you, either. What difference does it make who's older?"

A sound dripping with sadness issued from Luke. "It doesn't matter which one of us is older, I guess. It's just that…" Luke's voice trailed into silence.

Han uncomfortably watched as Luke wrestled with some unknown internal issue. Dealing with emotional subjects usually made Han so uncomfortable that he immediately created a reason to be anywhere else. He could probably expect married life to become fairly emotional, but he'd only been married to Luke's sister for a month; his marriage hadn't had time to get too emotional yet.

But Han steadfastly refused to give in to the fight or flight instinct that was assaulting him now. Instead, he waited with uncharacteristic patience for Luke to explain.

Several unpleasant expressions crossed the younger man's face, and he eventually clenched his hands into fists. The unflappable Jedi was showing more feeling in this one restrained motion than Han had seen him display since he'd come back from Jabba's Palace.

Hands still clenched into tense fists, Luke haltingly tried to speak his mind. "It's just that… After I rescued you, I went to…" Again his voice trailed off in another aborted attempt at speech.

Slowly, Solo expounded, "Yeah, I know you didn't return with us to the rendezvous. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Leia said that you had business to take care of, and I didn't question that. Did something happen?"

"No," Luke instantly said, then quickly amended, "Yes." A heavy sigh of frustration burst from him. "Ben… said something... that I can't quite wrap my mind around."

"Ben… Kenobi?" Han growled. "He died years ago. How can he say anything?"

"He's a..."

Han scowled again when Luke's voice trailed away once more. Ben Kenobi was dead. Han had seen him fall at the Death Star, and in spite of the way that Luke had insisted for years that he'd heard the old man speak to him on several occasions, he couldn't make himself believe that 'dead' meant anything other than 'gone forever.' But the trusting, open expression on Luke's face showed that the young man believed that he'd recently heard Ben Kenobi, if not seen him as well. "Don't tell me that being a Jedi suddenly gives you powers to commune with the dead."

"No." Luke's tense laughter held a hint of hysteria, and he fidgeted on _The Falcon's_ bench seat, his discomfort obvious. "I can... occasionally... talk to Ben's ghost... ask him questions, get some…" Again, his voice trailed away. Another silent moment went by before he forced himself to go on, "I was going to say 'get some answers,' but… Ben…" He turned suddenly anguished eyes on Han. "I'm not sure I can trust Ben anymore."

This was confusing. "Trust him with what?"

Luke stared off into the distance, as if recalling some memory that pained him. When he spoke once more, his voice was barely more than a whisper. "Years ago, Ben told me that Darth Vader murdered my father. I believed every word he said. I didn't find out until Bespin that Darth Vader _was_ my father."

"But this is old news, " Han protested. "Bespin was…" How long ago had the events at Bespin's Cloud City occurred? It had all happened just the other day according to him, but he knew that months had passed for everybody else. Han had been briefed on the events that had transpired during his absence, but he still wasn't completely sure how long it had been. "It was a long time ago," he finally said. "I thought you had accepted the whole Vader/father thing."

"'The Vader/father thing?'" Luke mockingly echoed.

Han gave an exasperated huff. "You know what I mean. Leia told me about… about Vader… and having the Force-"

"You make being Force sensitive sound like we have a genetic disease."

"Well, that's what it is, considering... " Han let his own voice trail to silence this time out of deference for Luke's feelings about his father. Yet, Luke needed help, not deference. "Considering who yours and Leia's father was."

"Anakin Skywalker was our father, not Darth Vader."

"That's a matter of opinion that most people don't share," Han warned.

"You mean that it's only true from a certain point of view."

According to the tone of Luke's voice, this was the crux of his problem. "Do I detect a note of bitterness there?"

"Bitterness." Luke's bark of laughter was so quiet this time as to be almost inaudible. "I do feel bitter… though a Jedi shouldn't feel any strong emotion, ever."

"That's insane," Han instantly scoffed. "How can you never feel anything?"

"I need to have complete control of my emotions, " Luke insisted. "Yoda said-"

"He was your Jedi master, right? I thought you said he was dead, too." Han rubbed at his neck, still uncomfortable with the high level of emotion in this topic, but could see that Luke was hurting. He owed Luke, more than he could ever repay, and was therefore determined to help in spite of his discomfort. "You're talking in circles, Luke. Why don't you tell me exactly what happened?"

Luke's second frustrated sigh exploded into the common area. "You know what Ben told me before. But now I know that what he told me isn't exactly true. When I confronted Ben with this, his answer was that what he'd told me was true from a certain point of view."

Han spoke slowly. "So, what you're saying is-"

"I'm saying that Ben told me exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it in order to make me _want_ to kill my own father. Only I didn't know he was my father then… and when I found out, he basically told me that if I didn't kill Vader, it meant that the Emperor had already won. I knew that if we lost the war all because I couldn't kill the Emperor's apprentice, it would be all my fault, and-"

"So, if you didn't kill your own father, the Rebels would lose the war… is that right?"

"Yes… but that's not what I'm angry about," Luke protested.

"It's not?" Han was utterly confused again. "But you just said-"

"I'm angry because… because of Ben and the Emperor… they're like..." Luke again clenched his teeth. "The Skywalkers were only ever just pawns in this big galactic game between Obi-Wan and the Emperor."

Han hadn't expected to hear this. "Do you really believe that?"

Indecision showed in Luke's rapidly changing expressions. He leaned against the seat back now in a semblance of relaxation, but an unhealthy film of exhaustion covered him. Han wondered when he'd last slept, but didn't want to interrupt Luke's concentration to ask.

"I don't know what to believe," the Jedi eventually admitted with a disheartened shrug. "Sometimes I think it's right to think that way, and at other times that I've finally lost my mind."

"What did…" Han couldn't recall his name "... your teacher say?"

A brief smile lifted the corners of Luke's lips. "Yoda? That I had to fight Vader again if I wanted to become a Jedi."

How did fighting Vader turn Luke into a Jedi, especially if Vader happened to kill Luke in the process? That didn't make any sense. This Yoda sounded just as enigmatic as Ben. Han remembered Ben as an old man who talked in circles, giving no details. However, Luke now looked so lost that Han felt the need to forget about Ben and say something that might be of some comfort to the young Jedi. "Look, Luke, I don't know what your Jedi teacher would tell you to do-"

"He'd tell me to meditate."

That sounded like a fairly useless activity to Han, but he was game for anything at this point. "Have you tried it?"

"I've tried for days."

"Did it work?"

Luke trained his red rimmed eyes on his friend. "Would I be here talking to you if it did?"

"Ah. Point taken."

Luke made a frustrated tap on the tabletop with his fist, a motion that would have seemed much more severe coming from anybody else. "No matter how much I meditate on this, I can't see a way to make it so that I wasn't so… _used._ "

Han's bark of laughter caught Luke by surprise. "Luke, we're all of us used," Han told his friend, dropping heavily onto the bench next to him. "You used me a few years ago to rescue some princess I'd never heard of before. There was a good chance I'd get a blaster shoved up my nose and end up dead, but that didn't stop you from using me. Or using Chewie as a means to get into that detention block."

"I didn't use you," Luke argued. "You were just available to-

"Precisely. We were available."

Luke blinked at this revelation. "Oh. Right. Of course you were available. It was your ship that had been captured."

"And as fate would have it, my future wife led me to discover the most incredible smell in the galaxy. So things worked out in the end, just like they always do."

There was an amount of truth in that. "I guess you're right."

"And even if Ben said that you had to kill your father, and the Emperor said that instead he and Vader had to kill you, or turn you to the Dark Side, or-"

"I almost turned, you know."

Han paused, his breath catching in his throat. If Luke had turned to the Dark Side to join Vader in evil, he would be sorely missing his friend right now. Even the imaginary loss made his breath hitch in his throat. "What stopped you?"

"I… I… Vader… He…" Luke glanced surreptitiously at his right hand. The black glove covering it seemed bulky today, too large to be resting on the table's small game squares. Like a man caught in a dream, Luke slowly peeled off the glove, exposing the hole that had been blasted into his prosthetic hand during the battle at Jabba's sail barge. The hand's circuits and gears visually clicked together, whirring gently as Luke shifted his fingers. "I realized I was becoming… _him._ "

The pirate had never seen Luke's prosthetic hand before, having been encased in carbonite when he had acquired it, then blind when someone had blasted it and Luke had hidden the damage by donning his customary black glove. Han tried not to stare now, but found the damaged hand too gruesomely fascinating to successfully look away. Instead, he surprised even himself when he grasped Luke's right fingers gently with his own for a closer look.

Then Han blinked, and the vision he'd had of his friend slowly morphing into his father faded. As fascinating as it was to see a hint of what Vader… and now Luke… was really like, it wasn't part of the ultimate point that Han wanted to make. "What I mean is: everyone uses everyone else to some extent. You use me. I use Chewie… or rather, his arms. The pilots use your skill in an X-wing. Lando uses-"

"... any card he can get his hands on."

They both chuckled at Luke's apt description of the gambler. "Chewie uses me," Han went on, "and Ben used you… to an extent," he emphasised with a raised finger. "Do you know of any reason why Ben would want you to kill Vader?"

Luke slowly guessed, "Because he knew it needed to be done… but he couldn't do it?"

"Or because he'd tried at one time and failed, and wanted you to do what he couldn't," Han added on a burst of insight.

"Maybe," Luke added thoughtfully. "I guess I'll ask Ben… if I ever see him again."

"You think you won't see him again?"

"Well, the Emperor's dead, Vader's dead, Yoda's dead, the war's over… is there a reason for him to show himself any longer?"

Han suddenly grinned. "It won't be to chat with your sparkling personality, that's for sure."

Luke looked at him in sudden irritation. "I think I liked you better encased in carbonite."

"Ah, that's the Luke I know," Han immediately stated. "Just slightly irritated, and sarcastic because of it. You've been hanging around me too long. But it's better to be irritated and used than unused and completely without friends to do the using in the first place."

A hot retort was on the tip of Luke's tongue when he suddenly paused as Han's last suggestion finally sank in. The resulting epiphone made his breath hitch in his throat. "Huh. It really _is_ all about your point of view, just like Ben said." The corners of Luke's lips lifted into a slight smile. "I do feel better. Maybe a touch irritated, but better." His smile grew. "Who would have thought. Thanks, Han."

Han grinned back. "That's what friends are for… to irritate you to death."

Luke gave an unusually light-hearted glare. "Just wait till I get my lightsaber out. Then we'll see who's irritated."

"Careful, or I'll sick Chewie on you."

"Haven't we been over this already?"

"I'll sick Leia on you."

"You play dirty, Han Solo."

"It's good to have you back."

The End


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19: The Rebel Alliance Hero Rebellion

"Luke?" Wedge thoughtfully asked as they sat on the hangar bay floor of the _Home One_ to clean spare parts after performing the weekly check on their X-wings.

When Wedge didn't continue right away, Luke glanced up from the spare part in his hands. "Something holding your tongue?"

Wedge looked at him sideways. "I see all that Jedi stuff hasn't improved your rotten sense of humor."

"I see that blowing up a Death Star hasn't given you one, either."

Wedge chuckled. "Same old Skywalker."

"Same old Antilles." They went back to their companionable cleaning duties, neither speaking, though their silence was as comfortable as their friendship.

But at last, Luke prodded, "You were going to ask me something?"

Wedge hesitated. "I was. But I don't want you to take it the wrong way."

Luke's smile was small, but considering what passed for a smile from him since his time spent in the Emperor's Death Star Throne Room, it was big. "How can I take it the wrong way if I don't know what you're talking about?"

"You remember Jansen, right?"

"Sure. It hasn't been that long since we were all in Rogue Squadron together." Luke didn't see the point of mentioning how he was barely able to maintain his X-wing now that his interest had changed from Rogue Squadron to being a Jedi. "Is there something that I can do for him?"

Wedge heaved a sigh. "Jansen just heard that his sister is in Idris Work Camp."

Luke frowned. "I thought that since the Empire's finished, they'd shut down those work camps."

"We both know that news of the end of the Empire isn't always accepted, especially by places like Idris that's run by your average local crime lord."

"And… Jansen wants the Rebellion to do something about it?"

"Jansen has already talked to the Rebel Council… or what's left of it. They said that since they're energies are involved in starting a new government, they really don't have time to get involved. They can't do anything, anyway, especially for one of their own."

Luke considered. "I see their position. Once they start down that path, they might never get off." _It's like the path to the Dark Side._

"I can understand what they're saying," Wedge acknowledged, "but what's Jansen supposed to do now?"

Luke's sardonic bark of humor was bigger than most of his recent emotional displays. "So what you're saying-but-not-saying is that the crime lord in charge of Idris won't shut down his camp because it's more lucrative to keep it open, and so Jansen's sister is still there, and you want your Jedi friend to help this crime lord see the error of his ways."

Wedge looked chagrined, but determined. "Jansen refused to bother you with this, but I thought there was no harm in just bringing it up."

Luke dropped the rag and spare part in his hand to replace the tools in their proper place in the tool box he and Wedge had borrowed. "You do know that I have plans to go looking for other Force sensitives, right?"

Wedge grimaced. "Yeah, I know, and I won't argue that you have the right to to do that."

"It's why I'm even checking over my X-wing."

"And hoping to get you alone to ask you this question is why _I'm_ checking over _my_ X-wing at the same time," Wedge told him.

Instead of growing angry at hearing about such blatant maneuvering, Luke's brow clouded in question. "Jansen's sister means so much to you?"

"It's not that she means so much to me, but she means so much to him."

"If that's the case, why didn't he just ask me to intervene himself?"

It was Wedge who snorted this time. "Everybody's scared of you, Luke."

This wasn't welcome news. "Scared of me? Why?"

"Well, not so much scared of you, but…" Wedge winced. "Force users have a bad rep in the Alliance, that's what I mean. The pilots… they can't help but cast you in the same mold. It's not like they understand the difference between you and…" His voice trailed off, but it was obvious what he wasn't saying.

"Vader." Luke had been afraid of this type of stereotyping, but this was the first time he'd experienced it. "I'm nothing like Vader." _Except for being his son._ But Luke didn't plan to publicize that information for as long as he could keep it quiet.

"Tell that to the pilots," Wedge said, placing his tools alongside the ones Luke had cleaned.

"It's not hard to tell the difference between a Sith Lord and me. I'm not trying to kill them."

Wedge's laughter broke the tension that had fallen over the two. "Good point."

"I want to help, really I do, but-"

"Let me ask you this," Wedge interrupted. "Was your decision to join the Rebellion an easy one to make?"

Luke laughed a bit at his question. "You know my story as well as your own. My parents are dead, and the Empire killed my aunt and uncle, burned our farm… I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Except to the Death Star to rescue some princess just before blowing it sky high."

Luke was getting tired of being known as the hero of the Rebellion just because of one lucky shot… even though he now knew that there had been so much more to it. "I'm no more a hero than you are. You blew up a Death Star, too."

"My point is that you didn't have family when you joined the Rebellion."

"Neither did you."

"But Wes Jansen did. Our decision to join was a lot easier than his, especially since he knew that the Empire treated his family worse because of it. His parents eventually died in that fire that happened last year."

"That fire was an accident, wasn't it?"

"That was the official reason, but we know how the Empire operated."

Luke sighed unhappily. "I'd hoped that things would be different. Wes never really said anything specific. But the fact that they captured his sister supposedly selling false papers a week later always _did_ look suspicious."

"That's what I mean."

Luke's sigh now turned aggravated. "The Emperor's dead… the Empire's gone… the war's over and done with. Why is there always someone who refuses to admit that and move on?"

Wedge gave a sarcastic smirk. "Because it's so hard to stop getting wealthy off all that misery caused by the Empire."

Leia would see this as proof of Luke's social naivete, but he couldn't help it when he said, "It shouldn't be like that."

Wedge gestured outwards in open invitation. "Then do something about it."

Luke's forehead wrinkled. If he got involved in rescuing this girl, then what was to keep others from wanting him to do the same? Just as with the new government, he could be rescuing people for the rest of his life!

"Having a Jedi in our ranks will go a long way in saving lives."

Luke grimaced. "But, when would I have time to serve my own Jedi interests?"

"If we don't help him, how can we face Jansen again?"

Luke's grimace deepened. "Wedge, you know just what to say to make me feel like space garbage. Pretty soon, I'll be nothing but a mercenary." He had no desire to even be thought of as a mercenary. It made him feel like he'd put his skills up for hire. Yet, Wedge made a good argument. If he said no, how could he ever look at Jansen again without feeling horrible? A Jedi was supposed to help, not stay on the sidelines where it was safe. They were talking about this girl's _life_.

And he was well aware that it could be him stuck in some work camp just like she was. If he had been at home on Tatooine when those stormtroopers had killed his aunt and uncle, he might have been killed, too, but it was just as likely that he'd have ended up somewhere like Idris. He wouldn't have felt too forgiving of someone not helping him 'just because' in that hypothetical situation, either. Besides, what good was he if he didn't get involved?

His mind still reeling, Luke finally said, "You can count me in."

######

In the end, seven people and one Wookie converged on the Idris Work Camp (the word 'Imperial' was scratched off all the location directors). Ever since Han had signed on once he heard Luke talking about Jansen's problem, he'd offered to fly the group in on _The Millennium Falcon,_ and where Han went, Chewbacca went. Leia regretted that she couldn't accompany them, but Luke didn't. It was right for the new government not to get involved in this type of personal dispute. Leia's diplomatic skills would have been useful in this situation, but her skills were far more necessary to the New Republic. It wasn't like Luke and Han had never dealt with crime lords and gangsters before, anyway. As a concession to Leia, Lando tagged along to keep Han and Chewie out of trouble, though Luke suspected that it had more to do with the fact that Ionia, the work camp's home planet, was a hotbed for gambling.

Thinking of Leia made Luke suggest that they take the diplomatic approach first. He argued that even crime lords were reasonable. All they had to do was offer him/her/it something of value.

"What did you offer Jabba?" Han curiously asked as they entered the Palo system and aimed for the third planet of Ionia.

Luke almost smiled at the memory. "Artoo and Threepio. Of course, Artoo had my lightsaber in his dome in case it came down to a fight. But I offered to negotiate first."

"Knowing Jabba, I bet negotiations were short."

"More like nonexistent."

Han nodded. "So let's try negotiation first, then hit them where it counts."

"This is our plan?" Lando asked, a touch incredulous. "Shouldn't we come up with something more definite?"

All eyes turned to Han. He'd been the head of the Endor strike team, and this wasn't his first stint at strategy. Han visibly swallowed in anxiety, but then said, "Okay. Can you all hear me?"

The seven surged closer together in the tiny cockpit, and Luke exclaimed, "Lando, you're standing on my foot!"

Lando mumbled an apology just as Han decisively said, "Here's what we're gonna do... I think."

######

Han asked for permission to land near Idris on Ionia, and got it with surprisingly little difficulty.

Wedge nervously commented, "Either that means that they're confident they can handle anything, or they know we're coming, and have hired extra thugs."

"Stop worrying," Lando said, laughter in his voice. "This will work."

Wedge remained nervous. "It's times like these that I wish I had my X-wing."

Ionia filled the window, and Han headed for the Northern continent and the Idris Work Camp just as Jansen piped up, "I can't thank you enough, everybody. This means so much to me."

"Will you shut up, Jansen?" Han casually ordered. "That's the third time since we left Alliance HQ that you've mentioned being grateful. Say it one more time, and I'm gonna throw you out the airlock."

" _The Falcon_ doesn't have an airlock," Luke pointed out.

Han growled, "Oh, thanks Luke, now everybody knows!" He mockingly shook his head. "Leave it to a Jedi…"

Luke covered his smirk with his hand. At least they were all in good moods before attempting negotiations with the person in charge of the Idris Work Camp.

######

The person in charge of the Idris Work Camp was _not_ in a good mood.

The group had quietly submitted to the 'no weapons' policy to get into the camp, had made their request to review the case or even to free Chloe Jansen as respectfully as possible, and now patiently waited for the scowling individual named Or Redic to acknowledge them.

Which he did, after making them wait for several agonizing minutes. "So, you want me to review a case of one of the prisoners?" Or Redic repeated while glancing up to barely take them in with his gaze. "We don't do reviews. Once in Idris, you don't get out. Now beat it." He pulled a palmcom towards himself and pretended to be busy to encourage them to leave.

"You don't talk that way to the people who blew up the Death Stars," the pilot named Verly said. He was a good friend of Chloe Jansen, and had insisted on coming along.

Or Redic barked in irritation. "Blew up the Death Stars, huh? Like I'm supposed to believe you, just like that. Don't threaten me. Now get out; I have work to do." He went back to his palmcom, dismissing them from his attention.

Luke was familiar with this type of bullying, and wasn't bullied in the slightest. He touched Wes Jansen on the shoulder in a silent suggestion that he take over the negotiations.

But Jansen stubbornly ignored Luke. "Wasn't this camp supposed to be shut down when the Empire was defeated? Technically, this operation is illegal, and so is holding anyone prisoner."

Fully irritated now at having his deeds called illegal, Or Redic slammed his hand on what Luke was certain was a silent security alarm, then jumped to his feet, his intent clear. Those with Jansen started backing out of the room, but not fast enough. Since Idris had no main office, the control room was the processing center as well as the gathering ground for camp security, meaning that guards were often close by, waiting to be of service. Beefy uniformed thugs quickly converged on the group even now, laser rifles in hand, their attitudes full of intimidation. They weren't dressed like stormtroopers, but they might as well have been.

"I don't care if it's illegal," Redic now growled to the group. "And if you're not careful, you'll be joining this prisoner. When I say beat it, I mean beat it!" The security agents started roughly shoving them towards the door.

Luke held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay, we don't want trouble. We just thought we'd ask first."

While Jansen glared, and Chewbacca growled, and Han nervously fingered his empty hip holster, Or Redic strode around a control panel to confront Luke.

"First? What does that mean, Puny?" He pushed his face right up to Luke's, twisting it into a threatening glare.

But before Luke could try another tactic, Lando was there, charming as ever. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, there's no need for such unfriendly behavior."

"You're right there isn't," Or Redic growled, his focus now on Lando. "Cuff him."

Lando yelped in surprise as two of the security agents began pulling his arms forward prior to forcing them into metallic handcuffs.

 _Why do things always come down to this?_ Luke mundanely thought as, all focus on Lando now, no one noticed how he held out his hand not in the direction of the guards converging on his friend, but in the strange direction of the bank of windows at one end of the control room. A heartbeat later, Luke's activated lightsaber cut through the glass like it was made of liquid, then deactivated to crash in a swinging arc through the hole previously made, and slapped safely into his palm. He didn't even have to look at it.

The green blade again sprang to life the second after it hit his hand. The guards opened fire in the next second. Red bolts of energy careened into Luke's lightsaber, but he deflected every bolt, most going into the walls, though some hit unlucky soldiers in the arm or leg. It was fortunate for them that they were wearing armour; the laser bolts meant for Jansen's group didn't do the damage intended, but they did plenty of damage to the Idris soldiers.

Mindful of what Wedge had said about the pilots being afraid of him, Luke concentrated on not deflecting any of the bolts into the other soldiers' heads, but he wasn't always successful. Two out of the twenty soldiers died the minute the parts of their heads not covered by their helmets collided with an energy bolt.

Meanwhile, Han and the others had grabbed the opportunity to take cover behind any convenient computer console, looking like they were diving for cover when in actuality they were fanning themselves out into positions to act as backup to a suddenly focused Jedi Knight.

Serene, Luke marshalled the glowing energy inside him to yank several rifles away from the unsuspecting guards and throw them to his friends waiting behind him. Thanks to Luke, these peaceful individuals had unexpectedly become an armed militant group who quickly joined the fight to shoot laser bolts into the arm and leg joints of the armour of men who were standing much closer to them than to Luke. They did plenty of damage on their own, though it wasn't nearly as impressive as the damage wrought by Luke.

Using the Force, Luke pulled several wall computer panels down in a rain of sparks to fall on unsuspecting soldiers, and shoved several more into the bank of windows in the same manner.

Or Redic simply knelt where he was, covering his head with his arms, crouching near the floor. Luke stood over him in a semblance of protection, knowing that they would need his help to locate Chloe Jansen inside Idris. It was a big camp, and finding her when she wasn't in her cell would be difficult without the camp director's help. So they needed him alive… unfortunately.

"Stop shooting!" Luke eventually ordered the security men. "I don't plan to kill any of you, but I will if you keep this up."

The laser bolts instantly ceased, much to Luke's satisfaction. He hadn't truly expected hired soldiers to give up so easily, so remained wary even though the firing had stopped. Cautiously, he straightened to step away from Redic's crouching form.

"Luke, look out!" Wedge yelled just as Luke 'saw' the soldier maneuver behind him in order to take him by surprise with a spray of laser fire. Luke whirled, yanking a wall unit down at the same time, effortlessly blocking the deadly spray of laser fire with his lightsaber. The wall unit missed crushing the soldier by an inch, but the thud it made as it hit the floor caused the soldier to jump just a fraction, and his laser shower paused for a second. Luke immediately took advantage of that pause, somersaulting towards the soldier in a graceful arc that brought him close enough to cut the weapon off at the source by slicing through the man's arm. The man howled in pain and dropped back, tripping on the console that Luke had pulled down a moment before. He fell next to the console and didn't move.

As if coming out of a trance, Luke slowly straightened again, lowering his blade, but not deactivating it. "Are we finished with such foolishness?" he asked meaningfully, eyeing the remaining soldiers with a withering glance.

As one, the soldiers began laying their rifles on the floor, holding their hands up in surrender.

"Good." Luke then deactivated his lightsaber, but kept his finger on the power switch. Crossing back to Or Redic's side, he yanked him to his feet. "Now, I'll ask nicely. Where is the prisoner known as Chloe Jansen?" A harsh shake added extra incentive for quick cooperation.

Nervous now, Or Redic visibly shook as he quickly consulted his palmcom. "Chloe Jansen is in Prisoner Group AC3. They're assigned to comb through the trash dump today."

"Call that them back to Control," Luke ordered.

"The soldiers won't-"

"That wasn't a request." Luke shook the man again, making him wilt even more.

Or Redic glanced at Luke, then darted wary glances at Luke's lightsaber, obvious anxiety suffusing his dark eyes. He self consciously cleared his throat, then moved to the address system. In a shaking voice, he said, "AC3, report to base. AC3, report to base." Then he glanced up at Luke, eyes still wary, but resigned. "Kill me now and get it over with."

Secretly appalled at how quickly the man assumed his own death (what kind of oversight was Or Redic used to dealing with?), Luke nonetheless allowed a simple half smile to lift the corners of his lips into a wicked grimace. "Don't tempt me."

Clearly surprised but relieved to hear that he was to remain alive, Or Redic immediately started fawning over Luke in response to this welcome news. "Is there anything else I can do for you, Sir?"

Oh, he was 'Sir' now? Han barely contained his laughter at hearing someone call Luke 'Sir,' but Luke refused to let himself be distracted by his friend. "Shutting up will suffice."

"Of course, Sir." Redic instantly complied, though his hand hovered near his throat, as if he fully expected this unknown terror with a lightsaber to make his displeasure known by placing him in a Force choke hold.

It was a move which aggravated Luke; clearly this man was used to dealing with a particular kind of Force sensitive. Luke hated to disabuse the ideas of such an unpleasant man, but he also didn't want to have to deal with a less than cowed camp manager. The grind of a fitful engine let him know that the prisoner transport carrying Prisoner Group AC3 had arrived when he came to a swift decision. "Call all the prisoners back to Control."

Thankfully, rather than question this strange request, Or Redic's response was to quickly lean in close to the Camp Address System. "All units, return to Base. All units, return to Base." His second glance at Luke was ten times more anxious than his first, and he once again nervously eyed the deactivated saber still resting in Luke's hand. "Anything else, Sir?"

Han wasn't as successful this time at holding in his laughter, but again Luke ignored him. "Tell your people that this camp is closed, permanently. Any prisoners unable to get off world who wish to go should see this man." He pointed to Han behind him. "His name isn't Puny, either, but Han Solo… hero of Yavin."

Or Redic burst into a coughing fit, obviously recognizing that name if not the man. Hacking almost uncontrollably, he was eventually able to do as requested, his announcement going out over the helmet comlinks as well as the public address system.

"Now, we wait." Luke's hand hadn't once relaxed on the collar of Or Redic's shirt; his fingers now twisted the material ever so slightly. "It would be foolish for any of you to try anything in the interim."

Or Redic gave his head a vigorous nod. "Of course, Sir, of course." He tilted his head ever so slightly in order to address the security agents standing near the walls. "You hear that, men? Don't… just don't."

"He means," Luke called out in a voice full of exasperation, "don't do anything stupid. Don't be a hero, don't be a flunky, don't try to be clever." He calmly lifted his hand up to eye level so he could hold Redic at the same time he minutely examined his lightsaber. "Let's all get comfortable together."

It was that minute when a scarred and dirty transport arrived in a rancid cloud of black smoke. Prisoners from Group AC3 slowly disembarked, clearly confused by the lack of guards to yell at them, informing them what to do. They milled helplessly near the Control Room, their confusion growing. Moments later, more transports full to bursting with haggard prisoners appeared outside the Control bunker to join them.

"After you," Luke invited, letting the armed individuals behind him roughly usher camp personnel to the mud outside.

As soon as he was alone in the Control Room, Luke whirled his activated lightsaber once again. The prisoners and soldiers alike all gave starts of surprise as it hummed its deadly concert, but people weren't Luke's focus this time. He slashed the saber through each piece of equipment in the room, causing smoke and the occasional shower of sparks as every console turned into slag. Critically eyeing his work, he said, "Much better," and turned his attention to leaving the Control room by a side door that led to the muddy yard outside. Or Redic stood lethargically beside the broken Control Room windows. "You and your soldier friends here need to board a transport _now_ and go as fast and as far as you can away from me. If you're lucky, someone will rescue you before you run out of fuel. Now, get out of here."

The freed prisoners jeered at the uniformed group, but didn't hinder them from boarding the nearest transport and leaving posthaste. Their stares at Luke, though, weren't much less troubled. Luke did his best to ignore the looks. "Wes?"

"Chloe Jansen, where are you?" Wes Jansen yelled the moment the transport disappeared, and rushed forward. "It's me, Wes."

A girl of about eighteen slowly wended her way forward, widened eyes darting between Luke and her brother. "Wes, is it really you?"

Wes didn't bother to respond, but threw his arms around her without another word.

Watching the reunion between the two siblings was a sight that Luke would treasure for the rest of his life. The two refused to part even when Han led them onto the _Falcon_ for the trip back to New Republic space.

The sight moved even Lando, though he had taken over Han's organizing duties and couldn't give them the attention he wanted to. But he was surprisingly good at his new job, and soon had the ex-prisoners separated into groups of people who either wanted to return to their families if they knew where they were, helped them to arrange passage to any planet they wished, or encouraged them to join with the fledgling government if they had nowhere else to go.

As Luke looked over the chaotic scene, his satisfaction grew. Though he knew that he wasn't supposed to feel any strong emotion, he couldn't help himself. He'd gotten a taste of what it felt like to rescue somebody when he'd saved the princess from certain death all those years ago, and that feeling had only increased over time. Even for the prisoners who were less than grateful for his interference on their behalfs, Luke smiled.

Wedge threw an arm companionably over Luke's shoulders. "Feels good, doesn't it?"

It was as if Wedge had known ahead of time how much Luke had needed this sensation. It was a reminder of how it felt to use the Force for the benefit of people rather than to solve the galaxy's problems in deadly serious clashes of Light and Dark. "Yes, okay Wedge, I admit when I'm wrong and you're right."

Grinning, Wedge asked, "How am I right? Say it out loud, Jedi."

His smile grown large as well, Luke said, "Thanks for talking me into this, Wedge. Getting involved was definitely the right thing to do!"

The End


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Full Circle

The mess hall chatter typical of the _Home One_ sounded loud in Luke's ears as two days later he shared his midday meal with his sister. A group of pilots sat at the next table, teasing, shoving, behaving like toddlers bent on a playdate, and occasionally remembering to eat in between bouts of general rowdiness. The Rebel command staff sat two tables over, attempting to ignore the pilots as they planned the next move of the Alliance's new government. Princess Leia would usually eat with those higher-ups who had also survived the war with the Empire. She had even been known to share an odd lunch or two with Han Solo, but now her attention was completely focused on her brother's commentary.

"It was the most amazing feeling," Luke enthusiastically told Leia, his smile so big that it would have easily eclipsed the second Death Star's explosion. "I haven't felt that good in…" How long had it been? Since working with Yoda, maybe? Since leaving the second Death Star alive? Since claiming his heritage? Had he ever felt that much alive? He finally had to lamely say, "It's been a long time."

Leia smiled. "Then it's a good thing that Wedge talked you into liberating Idris. Were all the inmates as grateful to you as Chloe Jansen was?"

"No. But that didn't stop the good feeling. Truly Leia, this was the first time I've felt that being a Jedi was about more than just solving galactic catastrophes. I was doing something _good_ for somebody for a change, something that had nothing to do with saving the galaxy, or balancing the Force."

The Princess laughed. "According to the glowing look on your face, I'd say that liberating a work camp rivals saving a friend from a gangster any day."

Luke's grin was sheepish, but wholly satisfied. "You have no idea."

"Since you had such luck at Idris, Han says that you should help him and…" Leia's voice trailed away when she noticed the attentive expression that had abruptly replaced Luke's grin, meaning that he had felt something… possibly a disturbance in the Force. "Luke, what is it?"

Luke was so focused that he couldn't respond right away. His blood was humming, his every muscle suddenly attuned to a noise that he could hear, but clearly Leia couldn't. It was like someone had idly plucked a string inside his mind as they walked by. Reverberations clanged among his brain cells and danced along his neurons. Luke continued to ignore his sister to try with all his might to pinpoint the source of the noise in his head before it dimmed.

Leia was starting to get worried now. This wasn't the first time she'd seen Luke go into a Force trance, but this was definitely the most intense he'd been while in one. "What do you feel?"

Quickly scanning the crowd, Luke tried to zero in on the source currently bombarding him with sensation, but kept missing it. "It's right here!" he exclaimed in frustration, his hand curling into a fist. "This is the fourth time I've felt it since we returned from Idris. If only I could figure out where it's coming from!"

Leia joined her brother in scanning the mess hall crowd, though she had no idea what she was looking for. "Give me a target area to concentrate on."

Luke's wave took in everything at the front of the room. "It just walked through the main door. Now it's standing in the food line… I think." Luke jumped up from his spot at the dining table, his food forgotten to stare intently at the group of individuals who had just come in. He could _feel_ the singing in the Force, but he just couldn't find the cause. A moment later, he walked away without another word.

Rolling her eyes, Leia watched him go. "Don't worry… I'll clean this up," she called to his back, gesturing to his half eaten lunch. He kept walking like he hadn't heard a word she'd said. With a sigh, she carried both their trays to the recycle bins to dump in the leftover food prior to depositing the dishes and trays. Then she simply walked out the main doors, leaving Luke behind without a second thought. She knew that her brother would find her when he needed to, and not a moment before. Until then, it would be like she didn't exist.

Just as Leia suspected, Luke didn't pay a bit of attention to her, much to his later chagrin. The twanging of the Force was just too insistent for him to pay attention to anything else just now. He strode meaningfully in the direction of the line of people waiting to eat, minutely studying each one of them in turn.

They all seemed perfectly normal to him, just like they had seemed each of the other times he had conducted this kind of search. The group of individuals all stared blankly back at him, or ignored his perusal altogether, or chatted with friends, oblivious. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't their actions that was calling out to him through the Force.

But he could _feel_ it so clearly! If only he could locate-

His scanning stopped as abruptly as it had started, like he had hit a wall.

 _Not a wall,_ he thought, silently chiding himself. _A barrier of some kind._ _No, not a barrier… a hole._ Closing his eyes, he stretched His Force sensations to feel every one of them, probing with senses that he didn't know he had until two days ago. _There it is again… and there. Here it comes… and there it goes. How did I miss it?_

Luke opened his eyes, and for the first time, noticed the slight gap between a man and the one standing behind him. It was a hole, just as Luke had suspected. Only it wasn't a hole in the typical sense of the word. The two men were talking over someone's head. Luke looked down… and was nearly blown off his feet.

He hadn't felt that much raw power in the Force, ever, not even while dealing with his father and the Emperor. Staggering, he automatically caught himself on the table beside him. His balance wavered, and his knees shook for another moment. The people sitting at the table stopped their conversation and looked up at him in concern, but he barely noticed them. He had eyes for nobody except a young boy of about five years old standing patiently in line, a bored look on his face as the two men he stood between carried on a conversation directly over his head.

The boy slumped against a nearby table, finally propping his head up on his hand. Then suddenly, he straightened to look frantically around, as if he had heard a far off cry for help. Without a word, he jerked around to stare right back at Luke standing a few feet away.

The boy's straight sandy brown hair swung with his sudden movement. He brushed it out of his eyes, and stared at Luke as if he couldn't look at him closely enough. His avidity would have unnerved Luke on any other occasion, but now the Jedi only stared back, nearly overwhelmed by the power of the Force aura surrounding the boy.

But they eventually had to do more than just stare at each other. Luke slowly stepped forward until he stood right next to the boy, moving in the most unthreatening manner he could. "Hello. You called me."

The boy unabashedly studied him. "Are you Darth Vader?"

Luke was so surprised that he choked on his next sentence. "Why… why do you think that?"

The boy gestured to Luke's clothes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You're wearing black. Doesn't Darth Vader always wear black?"

One of the men he stood beside suddenly pulled him back. "Anney, don't ask such silly questions!"

The boy looked up at the man beside him. "But I want to know, Labe."

The man gestured at Luke. "This isn't Darth Vader. This is the man who saved us. You saw him."

"He used a light sword, didn't he?" The boy turned to mildly accuse Luke, "Doesn't Darth Vader use a light sword?"

"He does… did," Luke corrected himself, unsure of how to speak about Vader without saying more than he wanted to.

Though he had apparently said enough already. "Did?" The boy tilted his head to the side in open curiosity. "What happened to him?"

"He… died." Puzzled by the banality of this exchange, Luke pulled his own lightsaber from the hook on his waist. "Is this what you mean by a light sword?"

The boy's eyes lit up. "That's what we saw you waving around at Idris right before you messed up all those computers. That was droovus!"

"Droovus?" Luke hadn't heard that term before.

The second man beside the boy spoke. "Er, he means that it was cool, icy, shiny, snowy, groolit, or whatever you say when something is especially nice."

"Ah." Luke nodded his understanding before turning back to the boy. "Yes, it was very droovus, if I do say so myself."

"Can you show us now?" the boy enthusiastically asked.

Luke grinned in spite of himself. "Uh, no, igniting a lightsaber in a crowd like this wouldn't be a good idea. People tend to get upset when they see one. Someone might get hurt."

The boy looked critically at the crowd. "Maybe you're right," he said in all seriousness. "We should light it up in the corridor!"

He would have walked right out the main doors and into the empty corridor if not for the hand gripping his arm. "Not now, Anney. It's time to eat."

So the boy wouldn't get any more alarming ideas about inappropriately igniting lightsabers, Luke reattached the weapon to his belt just as the boy dismissively said, "We can eat later. Let's go!"

Labe's hand stopped him again. "Eating's on our schedule at this time, and we don't want to cause any problems for these nice people who are letting us stay with them while we look for your parents."

Not at all fazed by this exchange, the boy quickly gave up on igniting the lightsaber, and turned to critically study Luke again instead. "If you're not Darth Vader, who are you?"

"I'm Luke. Luke Skywalker. Your name's Anney?"

The boy nodded importantly. "My real name's Anakin."

It was all Luke could do not to choke again.

"Only no one ever calls me that," the boy went on, oblivious to Luke's sudden distress. "They call me Anney… unless they want to yell at me. Then it's 'Anakin Octavius.'" He confidingly leaned towards Luke. "Mrs. Walley gave me the Octavius part. I _hate_ it."

Puzzled, Luke asked, "Didn't your parents give you that name?"

Anakin's brow furrowed as the men with him smiled tolerantly. The first one explained, "Anney has no parents. Mrs. Walley was the oldest prisoner at Idris, and watched him when we were out in the Badlands."

Anakin grimaced. "I still don't know why no one would let me go there. It wasn't _that_ bad, even if it was called the Badlands."

The first man sighed, as if this subject had been revisited many times.

"And I have so got parents," Anakin protested. "Just not here."

"Not here?" Luke gestured at the man beside him. "Isn't this man your..?"

"No, that's Jenner," he said, once again in a tone that implied that Luke should know that. "He and Labe and everybody at the camp raised me. My parents are in another camp." He said this like families being separated at camps happened all the time. "But I do have this." He held a necklace out for Luke to look at. "I don't know what the symbol on it means, or where I'm from, besides a camp, but there's a holo of my mom in there."

Luke knelt to take hold of the large circle that Anney held out to him without removing it from around his neck. The necklace was the kind that opened up, and Luke assumed the holo that the boy had spoken of was inside. Not wanting to pry, he didn't open it, but looked instead at the letter 'T' that was inscribed on the outside. It sat in the middle of a large circle in the lower right hand corner of the necklace charm, and two more circles hovered above it on the left. Luke recognized the symbol the moment he saw it as the flag of his own home planet. "You're from Tatooine."

Anney's nose wrinkled in perplexity. "Tatoo… what?"

"Tatooine," Luke said again. "This is the flag of the planet. I'm from there, too."

Anakin studied his necklace with new purpose. "Oh. I always wondered what that 'T' was for. That must be where _he's_ from…. the guy I'm named after."

The tolerant look settled again on Jenner's face. "The holo that came with Anney said that he was named for a man who once helped his grandfather."

"Yeah," Anney said, "we wouldn't be here if it weren't for him." Then he grinned as if just realizing something. "We wouldn't be here it if it wasn't for you, either, Mister Luke!"

Anney's grin was infectious, and Luke found himself grinning back like he hadn't grinned in ages. "Right."

"I bet that was fun," Anney said, adding, "You really showed Colonel Redic a thing or two."

Luke hadn't heard about the Colonel part. "I bet Colonel Redic won't be giving anyone any trouble for quite a while. Since he's not in charge of you anymore, do you want to find your mom?"

Anakin frowned. "But mom's at another camp. I don't know which one. How can we find her?"

"Um…" Luke paused nervously, his gaze darting to Jenner, then to Labe, then back to Anakin. "Now might be the right time to tell you why I'm here."

Anney spoke. "Yeah, you said something about me calling you. I didn't call you. You found us."

Luke slowly stood. "Not exactly." How should he explain this? Mindful of what his fellow pilot Wedge had said about everybody being afraid of him and his Force abilities, he began slowly. "Anakin, you asked if I was Darth Vader, remember?"

Anakin gave him a look that said 'don't be stupid.' "Yup."

"Well, that's not far from the truth. I'm a Force sensitive just like Darth Vader was. That's why I'm a little like Vader." The less said about that, the better. "I can move things without touching them, and it's why I have a lightsaber."

Again Anney's nose wrinkled. "Is it why you're wearing black?"

Luke wavered a bit before answering. "A Force sensitive doesn't have to wear black. You can wear whatever color you like."

Anney stared critically at Luke. "But black makes you look strong. And tall. And like you don't want to be messed with."

A half smile lifted Luke's lips. "Maybe. My point is that you're a Force sensitive, too. I could hear you calling through the Force. You probably didn't even know you did it. But it's why I'm talking to you. Right before he died, my Force teacher told me to pass on what I'd learned from him about the Force. I'll teach it to you if you want to learn." He looked at Labe, then at Jenner. "As long as it's okay with your..." One of them had mentioned that they were looking for Anakin's parents, not that either _was_ one of Anakin's acting parents.

But Anakin's eyes had already lit up again. "You mean I can go with you?"

Luke didn't quite know what to do, considering he wasn't speaking with Anakin's parents, or even his legal acting parents. "I don't know how this works. I'm new at this."

Anakin's nose wrinkled again. "But you're a grup… haven't you done this before?"

"A grup?"

Anakin spoke before Jenner or Labe could explain. "Yeah, you're tall… big… you stopped growing."

Once more, Luke smiled in understanding. "You mean a grown up."

"Yeah. Grup's know everything." His tone was again very certain.

It was clear that Anakin's grasp on reality wasn't as complete as it should have been, which wasn't surprising since he'd been raised in a work camp. "Grown ups know a lot, but they don't know everything. I know about the Force. My sister knows about politics. Her husband knows about ships." Saying that was better than saying that Han knew what made up a good hand of sabacc. "I also know some things about ships, but not as much as Han does. He's the man who brought you here."

"Can he take me to my parents?" Anakin wanted to know.

"Well," Luke hesitantly began, again studying Anakin's necklace. "We can start looking for them on Tatooine. There's a good bet that Han has already liberated the camp that one of them is at, since he's liberated so many by now." Han and Lando and Wedge had tentative plans to liberate three more camps, though they hadn't yet worked out how that might be accomplished, but this boy didn't need to know that. "Do you think they'll agree for you to go with me if we find them to ask?"

Anakin shrugged. "Don't know. I've never met them before." Then he conceded with a roll of his eyes, "I mean, I've _met_ them, or at least I've met my mom, but I was a baby, so I don't remember her. Or my father."

His nonchalant tone indicated that he didn't much care, either. The orphaned Luke was astounded at such a cavalier attitude. "Why don't you remember them?"

Anakin shrugged, and began to explain, "I was born in a camp on Aldin IV-."  
"Aldis IV," Labe corrected.

Anakin shrugged again. "Whatever. You can't have kids at that camp. So I was sent to Idris."

Why? What went on at that camp? More importantly, why didn't Luke already know about shady camps like that? "Where's your father?"

Another shrug. "Don't know. Another camp maybe?"

Which all boiled down to they could be anywhere. Luke cringed internally at the idea of such a monumentally difficult undertaking as finding either of them. But he knew how important it was to know your own lineage, and resolutely said, "We'll find them if the Force is with us."

Anakin's nose wrinkled. "You talked about that before. What's the Force?"

Luke sighed; was he going to have to teach everything to this boy? He hadn't anticipated needing to do this. He'd been under the impression that everyone knew about the Force. Out of desperation, he simply repeated the words that Ben Kenobi had once said to him. "The Force is an energy field that surrounds us, and penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."

Anakin's nose wrinkled as he considered this. With a young person's limited understanding of the workings of the galaxy, he brightly asked, "Does it make a lightsaber work?"

Luke wavered again. How could he explain how a lightsaber worked without mentioning kyber crystals? But a five-year-old wouldn't understand that. "Yes and no," Luke said at last, his desperation making him give a vague answer to such a big question. "It doesn't make it work, but I can make it work better if I use the Force."

"Is that what you did at Idris? Use the Force?"

"Yes."

"And I can do the same things?"

"Yes. I'll help you."

"Droovus! When do we start?"

Luke smiled; this was easier than he had thought. "We can start right now."

The End


End file.
